


Wayward Queen Attack

by kayecho



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Action & Romance, Drama, Gen, Harry Hart Lives, M/M, Marriage themes, Original Characters - Freeform, code names
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-04-04 01:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4120696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayecho/pseuds/kayecho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Eggsy’s position in the Kingsman is not Galahad, or Eggsy gets married in a professional way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The White Queen

**Author's Note:**

> This is thanks to my dear friend littlegreenpiper, who both gave me the idea in the first place, and agreed to beta the darn thing. I don't often write fics of this length, but this one got away from me. Plans for future chapters will include, with any luck, some smut, some violence and plenty of hurt-comfort.

Casualties within the heart of the Kingsman Organization were slowly accounted for in the days that followed the Richmond Valentine incident. Thankfully, Arthur hadn’t had the time to get his hands on many others, and only one other Agent had been found as a headless corpse, hiding deep in the Kingsman armory. When Merlin received the report, he wasn’t surprised. Guinevere’s role was to always be Arthur’s right hand. 

Playing leader of the organization in Arthur’s absence was difficult, but even more difficult was supporting Eggsy in the days following his heroism. Merlin struggled to communicate to him, that he couldn’t reveal the happenings and going ons within the Kingsman if Eggsy himself was not a Kingsman. Unfortunately, without an Arthur, there was no way to knight a new agent. Eggsy deserved a part as much as anyone, especially the vacant seat of Galahad, but Merlin’s hands were tied, and he tried again and again to explain that to the young man.

Eggsy had a hard time accepting this as fact, but Merlin tried to keep his hopes up. He visited him as often as possible to ensure that the young man was still training, was still keeping up his skills and abilities. Eggsy would someday become an important and irreplaceable asset to the Organization, but that day had not yet come. 

In the meanwhile, of the nine Agents, five were physically available for missions: the new Lancelot, the ever reliable Gawain, the dedicated Gareth, the fiery tempered Lamorak, and the much older Bors. Percival was enduring intense emotional therapeutic sessions, trying work through the traumatic stress he had earned after coming to in the middle of a market with the blood of an uncountable number on his hands. Kay, unfortunately, had suffered several gunshot wounds despite his training, when he had gotten caught in V-day, and was slowly recovering in the Manor’s personal infirmary. Bedivere was picking up the pieces of his family, mourning the wife he had lost during V-day, while also having to care for an injured son and daughter, both of whom had barely managed to survive the scrapes they had gotten involved in. Galahad was… well. They had already drank a toast to Galahad.

But Kingsmen were Kingsmen, and despite those being out of commision, they still managed to pull themselves together to make a vote for the new Arthur. Merlin would have been happy to deliver the news to Eggsy, but he couldn’t. Classified was classified, and despite everything that Eggsy had done for Kingsman, for the _world_ , he was not allowed to share the news until the time was right.

So Kingsman conducted their ceremony without Eggsy. Crowning the new Arthur always happened with a bit of pomp and circumstance. It was a celebration of sorts, a coronation. It involved gathering the primary Agents, and other higher ranking positions. Merlin headed the ceremony, which involved extracting Excalibur from deep within the Kingsman vaults. Those who could not physically make it were present via their headset glasses, but many made the effort to travel the distance to be there to congratulate the new head of their organization. 

It would take several more weeks before the planets would align and Merlin could open up to Eggsy during one of their more intense training sessions. He had finally been given permission to deliver the news. He waited until Eggsy was out of breath, sweaty, tired and collapsed on the ground, with JB resting comfortably in his lap. 

Merlin maneuvered himself in front of Eggsy, looking down at him. “We have a position for you.”

The young man looked up. Merlin saw the expression on his face change from excitement, to nerves, to cautious optimism, before finally settling on something a little more neutral. Merlin wondered if Eggsy was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from displaying any other emotions. “Yeah?” He was trying to sound nonchalant.

“You,” Merlin began, straightening his back and his shoulders, his hands clasped behind him, “have been offered the position of _Guinevere_.”

Eggsy couldn’t hide the shock on his face, as his jaw fell and his eyes widened. “Is this a fucking joke?”

“Absolutely not. Arthur has hand picked you for the position, based on your test scores, your aptitude, and your performance under pressure during the Valentine incident.”

“ _Guinevere!?_ ” Eggsy seemed stuck on the name. “But that’s--”

Merlin rolled his eyes behind his glasses. He had thought Eggsy was better than that. “If you are going to point out the implied gender of the code names, then perhaps you should take that issue up with Lancelot.”

Eggsy had jumped to his feet by now, and he was shaking his head. He looked frustrated and annoyed. “That ain’t it. I don’t give a fuck about _gender_. It’s just _Guinevere_ ain’t _Galahad_ , cuz!”

Of course that was the reason for the young man’s frustrations. Merlin should have known. All this time Eggsy had been gunning for the position, desperate to fill the shoes that Harry had left empty after that incident at the South Glade Mission Church. It should have been the perfect fit, Eggsy had been Harry’s proposal, Harry’s protege, Harry’s pet project, but Merlin was only fulfilling the commands set forth by the new Arthur. “I am aware that, yes, but Galahad’s position is vacant, and will remain vacant until the higher positions have been filled.”

“Higher?” Eggsy sounded skeptical. 

“Surely you are familiar enough with the mythos to know Guinevere?”

Eggsy responded to the question with a pointed look, as if insulted that Merlin would even suggest he be so uninformed.

“Of course.” Merlin tried to hide a smile of amusement. “Then you also know that the queen is more powerful than any other piece in a game of chess.”

The position, code name Guinevere, was a complicated one at best. No other spot, not even Merlin, could work as closely to and as intimately with Arthur as Guinevere. It was literally the Queen. It ran the most dangerous, the most important, and the most time sensitive missions the Kingsman would permit for a solo agent. It went undercover, it assassinated, it escorted, it fought, it got captured and tortured and killed. It ran in places to save Arthur the risk of losing his or her own life. Its mission statement: Protect the king at all costs. In the nearly hundred year history of the Kingsman, most Knights were on their third or fourth generation. Lancelot, historically quite reckless, was on its sixth. Guinevere, however, was on its tenth, provided Eggsy would accept the position. 

“And Arthur hand selected _me_?” Eggsy asked, still skeptical. It was going to take a lot of convincing. “I mean, who the fuck is Arthur to want me for a part like that?”

Merlin sighed, a long suffering one. “I’m afraid I can not divulge that information until you have been officially welcomed into the Kingsman. There is a ceremony. There are traditions that must be considered.”

“Rox told me all about her ‘ceremony’. Just hand me the gun already.”

“It’s more complicated with Guinevere. There has to be a…” Merlin paused. It was difficult to explain the ceremony to an outsider like Eggsy. It would be the first time the position would be offered to someone without a long standing history within the organization. Eggsy was familiar with the inner workings of the Kingsman, but he wasn’t familiar with the traditions. “...a wedding. Of sorts.”

“A _what_.” Eggsy’s face went slack with confusion, mouth open, brow furrowed.

“A wedding,” Merlin repeated. “Of sorts.” There was an amused sort of smile playing at the corners of his lips now. He was obviously enjoying Eggsy’s bewilderment.

The tradition of the wedding went as far back as the original Arthur and the original Guinevere. She had been romantically involved with Arthur, but she had also been one of the best and most talented agents, Unfortunately she wasn’t allowed to hold one of the Knight code names because she was a woman, so instead she ran secret missions on Arthur’s behalf. When the two had agreed to get married, it became a Kingsman affair. It was a celebration, a joining of two people in an everlasting partnership, and she was granted the code name Guinevere. After she had been killed, the original Arthur, in his mourning, forbid any other woman take her place, and he died shortly thereafter, a casualty in a crucial mission. 

When the new Arthur took his place, he reinstated the position of Guinevere, so as to not risk his own life, after all he was the _king_ and had better things to do than run around in dangerous situations. He insisted that a position of that much importance couldn’t belong to a woman, and since then it became a position usually held by experienced, talented younger men who were willing to risk life and limb for the Organization and for Arthur. The wedding tradition, however, persisted, as a means of representing their full commitment and sacrifice. _Til death._

“It’s just a formality. It’s more like a knighting ceremony than anything else. It’s not as though we expect you to go home with Arthur and consummate the marriage. It’s just tradition. The same sort of tradition that dictated that you got to spend twenty-four hours with Harry after you made it to the final two.”

Eggsy’s face fell at the mention of Harry. It was still a sore spot for the young man. There hadn’t been any closure. He didn’t even have the time to mourn Harry before he was thrown into that scenario to stop Richmond Valentine. When it was over, he was too shook up. He had too many other things to think about, about his mother, about his sister, about Ryan and Jamal. Thoughts about Harry drifted in late at night when he was alone, lying in the empty apartment Merlin set up for him. He wished he could have apologized more. He wished Harry’s last words to him hadn’t been ones that were so frustrated, so disappointed. Everything he had done that day had been about trying to repay him. 

“So you expect me,” Eggsy finally managed, as he recovered from the shock and confusion, “to agree to be the right hand man to Arthur, when I have no idea who he is.”

“Unfortunately, yes. But if you agree to accept the position that we have offered you, then we can set the wheels in motion and have you inducted into Kingsman by Friday.”

“That’s in four days.”

“We’ll have a dress made up by then.” Merlin’s lips quirked into an amused sort of grin, as Eggsy’s expression turned to something he could only describe as a combination of shock and dismay.

“That was a joke.” The lack of turn up the end of Eggsy’s words was a desperate attempt to convince himself that there was no possibility it wasn’t a joke. Merlin refused to give him the satisfaction.

“It will be wonderfully bespoke per Arthur’s specifications.”

“Fuck off!” Eggsy threw his hands in the air in an exaggerated look of defeat. “And if I refuse?”

Merlin sighed, and he pushed up at his glasses, though they barely had slipped down the bridge of his nose. There small bit of levity they had just shared between them did little to change the fact that speaking of the organization was serious matter. “If you refuse, there is no guarantee that you will be a potential candidate for Galahad.”

This was true, after all, failed candidates were only eligible if they were proposed a second time by a different agent. While Merlin had every bit of faith that Lancelot would jump at the opportunity to present Eggsy as her proposal, it was still no guarantee he would make it through the rigorous training a second time, and Merlin knew, deep in his gut, even with the knowledge that the gun is loaded with a blank, Eggsy would refuse to shoot his dog every time.

Eggsy seemed to understand this too, and he hung his head. 

“This is your best opportunity to join Kingsman, Eggsy. It’s a personal invitation from Arthur himself. This is the first time the position of Guinevere has ever been offered to an outsider.” Merlin paused and then reached into his pocket, holding out as leather eyeglass case, inside holding the very same pair Eggsy had worn during the raid on Richmond Valentine’s base. They both knew its contents, and Merlin could see Eggsy’s hesitation clear as day on his face. “There are no tests. There is no training, but accepting the position means Galahad will forever be out of reach.”

Galahad was an important name for both of them. Merlin understood this more than anyone else. If he had the power, he would have handed the name to Eggsy without a second thought. Unfortunately, the universe does not work in that particular way. The universe likes to complicate things, which leaves both men here, staring at each other, with a pair of glasses between them.

“Do you want this?”

“Yeah. I do.”

Merlin closed his fingers around the case, drawing it back into his pocket with a satisfied sort of sound, unable to permit Eggsy to actually receive his glasses yet. “Then we’ll arrange for Friday.” He had traded the glasses for a small, paper thin tablet, and tapped on the screen a few times. He was sending a message to the newly appointed Arthur: **Guinevere. OK.**

A moment later a response appeared. **I do.** It was a cheeky response, and Merlin shouldn’t have expected anything less. He shook his head with a barely there smile on his lips, before returning his attention to Eggsy. “I’ll arrange for a pick up on Friday morning, 7 sharp. You will be brought to the tailor on Savile Road, and you will await further instructions there.”

“I feel like you’re setting me up for my first mission,” Eggsy commented with a laugh, and for the first time in months he looked happy and hopeful. “What kinda shit does _Guinevere_ do anyway?”

It was the question Merlin wanted least to hear. How does he even begin to explain how important the role was to Arthur, how deadly and risky it often proved to be. He pursed his lips together and then shook his head slowly. “That is for you to discuss with Arthur after your appointment. The job description is--”

“Lemme guess, classified?” After the amount of times Merlin had been forced to feed Eggsy that line, it was no surprise the young man jumped immediately to that conclusion. 

“Exactly.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it.”

Merlin took this moment as the opportunity to excuse himself. There wasn’t more to say that didn’t risk revealing everything to Eggsy prematurely. He had been biting his tongue on the issue for months now, and four more days wasn’t going to kill either of them, even if Eggsy’s sour, disappointed face cut into him more deeply than he ever cared to admit. He understood what Harry had seen in Eggsy’s potential, same as he had seen in Lee; but he grew to appreciate what Harry saw in Eggsy as a person.

JB ran circles around Merlin’s ankles as he maneuvered his way to the door, stopping only once to offer him the smallest treat, which elicited a bark of happiness from the young pug. Obviously the dog agreed with Harry.

“Friday,” Merlin reminded him as he stood at the threshold.

“Yeah, Friday,” Eggsy echoed in agreement to Merlin’s broad back, before the door shut behind him. 

The last few months had been difficult and lonely, but Eggsy was grateful. How many people got the chance to live in a flat for free, no matter how sparsely furnished and dull it was? It was an opportunity to keep him away from his stepfather, and it kept him away from his mother and sister on the off chance he were to targeted by surviving supporters of Valentine’s mission. Until he was officially a Kingsman, there was no guaranteed way to keep them safe, no equipment, no weapons, no surveillance. Merlin’s support, up until now, was independent of the organization.

Eggsy wondered if Harry would have been impressed with him. When he finally managed to find his footing in the events following V-Day, his mind drifted to Harry. It felt too late to mourn him by then. He never had the opportunity to experience the other stages of grief, forced instead to jump straight to acceptance, but sometimes he missed Harry so much it hurt. Sometimes when he lay in bed late at night his whole being ached with longing. Harry was gone. He didn’t understand how someone could become so important, could mean so much and leave that much of an impact in a person’s life in such a short time. 

The codename Galahad was everything Eggsy had been working towards, the last and only thing of Harry’s he wanted to keep selfishly for himself. Days and nights of training, only to be delivered the news that Galahad would be out of reach. He was being offered something bigger and better and greater than Galahad,according to Merlin, but he didn’t know what the position of Guinevere would entail; what it meant to work closely with Arthur; who Arthur even was.

The codename Arthur conjured up images of Chester King. If the current Arthur were anything like Chester then Eggsy would refuse to be held responsible for the man turning up beaten, battered, broken or dead. Fortunately, Merlin did know that much about him.

The days that lead up to Guinevere’s appointment went by in the same usual flurry that filled the days of those in the Kingsman. Limping to normalcy for the world, meant that there were always missions to be had. Mercenaries keep working, kidnappings don’t stop, assassinations still planned. The ceremony, as was the case with Arthur, would be a relief from the work: a much needed day of rest. Even it sounded ridiculous, there were reasons certain traditions persisted after all these years. 

Eggsy was on the street and waiting for the predictably punctual black taxi when it arrived early Friday morning. He didn’t recognize the driver, but he had a difficult time recognizing members of the Kingsman. The more Merlin admitted to the classified nature of the organization, the more he realized he didn’t know anything about the organization, and now here he was diving headfirst into god knows what. 

Thankfully Roxanne was in the back seat. She was handsome in her bespoke suit and glasses. The caramel color of the jacket suited her perfectly, and she was smiling at him. There was a speck of blood on the cuff of her sleeve, forcing Eggsy to ask if she had just come from a mission.

“Classified,” she responded with a smirk. She had spent the last several months reveling in her ability to say that to nearly every question Eggsy had for her. There wasn’t going to be much more opportunity come the end of the day.

“Of course.” Eggsy rolled his eyes, but he was hugging his old friend anyway. “So are you my escort or something? Cuz that would be hilarious.”

Roxy chuckled, and the reference wasn’t entirely lost on her. Even if it hadn’t been tradition for Guinevere to be escorted by Lancelot, she would have made the request herself. She felt like it had been years since she had last seen Eggsy, because her missions kept her busy and Merlin was likely correct in assuming that she wouldn’t be able to keep certain things classified if Eggsy begged long enough. It wasn’t as though he thought she couldn’t keep secrets, it was rather that Roxy was Eggsy’s biggest supporter. She, more than any of the other agents, thought the position of Galahad should have been handed over with no question. She had even gone so far as to refer to the young man by the code name on several occasions. “I am your escort, and it isn’t considered an extramarital affair until you’ve officially married Arthur.”

“Oh, naughty.” Eggsy kissed Roxy on the cheek. She smelled a little like gunpowder. “So how much do you know about Arthur, anyway? I mean, you can finally tell me what he’s like, right?”

Merlin had warned Roxy that the question would come up, and she had been anticipating it. The fact that Eggsy even managed to get a few other statements out prior was much more patient of him than she had expected. “The only thing I’m allowed to tell you, is that Arthur has been an agent in the past, but has not been able to fulfill field duties since getting injured on the job. And let’s be honest here, Eggsy. You don’t know the agents, you don’t know all of those who have been employed by the Kingsman. Even if I tell you his name, he could just be a complete stranger to you.”

Eggsy had considered that. He had more than considered it even, but hearing it from Roxy’s lips sort of made him deflate with a sigh. “And he picked me?”

“He saw what you did against Richmond Valentine. The footage was a compelling argument and Merlin fought for you every step of the way. Kingsman needs a Queen, and you were the best man for the job.” Roxy was matter of fact, but her lips curled into an amused smile as she lead into her next statement, “Besides, I’m dying to see what you’ll look like in the dress Arthur had made.”

“Dress! Merlin said the same thing! It ain’t really a dress, is it?”

Roxy shook her head, but that cat-like smile remained firmly on her lips. She had obviously been spending too much time with Merlin recently. The expressions were the same. “I wouldn’t know, I haven’t seen it.” With a look like that, Eggsy had no idea if she was serious or not.

He pouted and slumped down in the back seat, arms folded across his chest. Roxy nudged him with his elbow and he let out a sigh. “This is some kinda elaborate joke, innit? I’m gonna show up in a dress and Merlin’ll yell, ‘Surprise, you’re Galahad!’ It was just wishful thinking, even though he had the last few days to think about it, to accept the fact that he would never be Galahad, that the only thing left of Harry’s would no longer be his for the taking.

The best Roxy could do was offer Eggsy’s knee an encouraging, apologetic squeeze. She wanted to say more, but she wasn’t allowed. Merlin was monitoring them from at least three different angles, so the rest of the ride occurred mostly in silence. There were a few questions on Roxy’s part for Eggsy, asking about his mother, his sister, his friends. He responded honestly, that he hasn’t been allowed to see them that much. That Merlin made it quite clear that until he had official Kingsman safety nets in place, there wasn’t anything he could do for them.

Choosing to accept the position of Guinevere was as much about his family as it was about his desire to be with the only other people he cared about. 

The taxi pulled up to the Kingsman tailor shop. It looked the same as ever, though the suits in the window display were changed to something more suited to the winter holiday: long woolen coats, patterned scarves, tall boots, hats and jumpers. The last time Eggsy had been in this shop, he had been responsible for murdering the previous Arthur; now he was becoming his partner.

He snorted his disbelief at the door. “I feel like I’ve gone absolutely mental,” he muttered to himself.

“Mr Unwin, perfect timing.” One of the tailors was standing in wait for him by Dressing Room 2. Harry’s words drifted into Eggsy’s mind, dragging a reluctant chuckle from his chest. Harry had been relentless in his teasing during those twenty-four hours they spent together: the almost touches, the closeness, the innuendo. Eggsy was dying towards the end. He had practically been counting on Harry getting his measurements himself.

In the end, the bespoke suit, made per Harry’s specifications was the closest Eggsy got to Harry’s hands on every inch of him.

“We have your dress laid out for you, sir.”

Eggsy looked frantically for Roxy’s support, but she was already disappearing into Dressing Room 3. The tailor, a thin, angular older gentleman named Shelly, gestured towards the second room, with a tilt of his head and a slight bend of his body. He had spent many years as a first rate assassin among the Kingsmen, but found retirement in the handling of their bespoke suits over the years. That didn’t make his gaze any less terrifying. “Come along, Mr Unwin.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

“Do you require assistance getting dressed?”

“Nah, I got it. I can put on a suit myself, thanks.”

“Fair enough, sir.” Shelly held the door open until Eggsy stepped inside, and he pulled it shut behind him.

Eggsy stood for what felt like a decade in the room. He had never been in this room. He had memories of the first one, with it’s long slow descent, with Harry looking over his shoulders and delivering _that_ speech to him. He had memories of the third one, where he was able to joke and show off just how relaxed he had become in the older gentleman’s presence. The second room was a mystery to him.

It looked the same as all the others, but whatever secrets it held, he couldn’t uncover them on his own. He turned his attention to the garment bag instead.

Inside the garment bag, despite his fears, was not a dress. Instead it was an impeccably tailored off-white, double breasted suit, with the barest, faintest gray-blue pinstriping. A crisp white shirt, dark leather shoulder holsters, a gray-blue pocket square and his tie. The same tie from his first and only mission as Eggsy Unwin. 

It couldn’t have been the same one. That had been sliced clean through by Gazelle, but there it was, with it’s navy blue field and golden and red stripes. Eggsy reached for it. He held it. He cradled it. It felt old and worn. It smelled…

Like Harry.

The realization hit Eggsy like a truck. This wasn’t _his_ tie. It was _Harry’s._ The same one he wore when they first met. The same one he wore on his last mission. The same one he had died in.

It took Eggsy a long time to get dressed. He was slow and deliberate in his motions. Everything had been prepared for him, even a fresh pair of boxer shorts, matching socks and garters. He slid into the pressed trousers. He did up the stiff, black, leather belt. He took his time with each button of his shirt. He carefully tied the laces of his perfectly fitting oxfords. When he finally stopped to look in the mirror, he raised his arm and very carefully did up the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. He repeated the motion on his left.

Finally the glasses.

“Took you long enough,” Merlin’s voice came through the speaker, clear as day, as if he were speaking directly into his ear. “I need to run through the rest of the day’s itinerary.”

“I--”

“Everything fits perfectly?”

“A bespoke suit always fits.” Eggsy echoed the line that Merlin had fed him on that jet months ago.

“Right it does.” Merlin sounded amused on the other side. “Lancelot has already gone on ahead. The ceremony happens at headquarters, so you’ll have to take the transport tube there. From there-”

“Merlin,” Eggsy interrupted, “It’s Harry’s tie.”

There was a pause on the other side of the headset, and then the sound of Merlin’s baritone chuckle. “You noticed, good. I thought you would appreciate it.”

“Thank…” Eggsy felt a little choked up, and the word got caught in his throat. He swallowed, trying to find his voice. “Thank you.”

There was another pause, a little longer than the first. Finally Merlin spoke again. “You will take the transport tube to headquarters,” it was as if he hadn’t gotten derailed in the first place. “From there I’ll meet you and be your escort until the ceremony.”

Eggsy was actually a little grateful for Merlin’s ability to disconnect from the emotions, because it dragged his attention back on track. He remembered where he was, what he was there for. He listened carefully to Merlin talking him through the rest of the day, leading up to the moment he would meet Arthur and officially join Kingsman.

“From there, as tradition allows, you will have twenty-four hours to spend with him. He will be the one to debrief you on your position, what it entails and the risk therein.”

“Just like when it came down to me and Rox, yeah?”

“Exactly like that.”

Eggsy emerged from the dressing room and gave Shelly a smirk in response to the nod of approval towards his brand new suit. It felt just like the suit he had been given by Merlin on that jet. Shelly was also on hand, literally, to activate the Dressing Room 1 lift. The older man wasn’t particularly talkative, but he did compliment himself on the fine tailoring job he had done on the suit, and he also complimented Eggsy on his broad shoulders and slim waist. “There aren’t many people who can pull off a double breasted suit so effortlessly,” he said, as Eggsy stepped off towards the tube. “I wish I could attend the wedding, but my job is never done.”

Eggsy climbed into the awaiting tube. He sat in the same reverse facing seat he had sat in before. It took off like a rocket. It was quiet, he was quiet. Merlin had disconnected the communications temporarily. It felt like everytime he rode in this tube it took forever: a forty minute ride stretched out over an emotional eternity. 

The last time Eggsy rode in the transport tube, he was trying to find Merlin and Roxy, clutching a chip in one hand and Arthur’s phone in the other. At the time he had been so caught up in what had occurred in that dining room, that he hadn’t had the opportunity to think about Harry sitting across from him. Today, with that tie around his neck, all Eggsy could do was think of Harry. Harry sitting there in that dark, pinstriped suit. An uncomfortable silence had hung between them. 

If Eggsy had known he would lose the older gentleman, he would have tried to talk more. He would have tried to get to know him.

The carriage lurched to a stop. 

Merlin stood on the other side of the door as it slid open. Eggsy couldn’t stop himself from grinning. It was the first time he had ever seen the gentleman in anything other than jumpers and trousers. He was in a sharp suit and had switched out his casual glasses for the same heavy rimmed agent regulation frames. It distracted him from his thoughts of Harry.

“Wow, you look good! What’s the special occasion?”

Merlin made a face and gave an exaggerated, sarcastic laugh. “Come on, I’ll show you around the headquarters. Arthur isn’t quite ready for you yet. Can you keep that suit clean for the next few hours?”

“And risk you charging me an arm and a leg for it, hell yes I can keep it clean.”

“A literal arm and leg,” Merlin corrected, as he shifted his clipboard from one arm to the other. He gestured, leading the way. “Arthur would be quite disappointed to know that he can’t join us for the first leg of the tour, but he wouldn’t be able to keep up anyway.”

“Keep up? How old is he?”

“Not that old.”

Eggsy would have glared at Merlin, but he had learned over the past few months that very little could make the older man crack on his confidentiality. As much as he hated to admit, Eggsy liked that about him. He was so alike and so different from Harry all at once. He smiled more for one. His humor was a little darker for another. It was comforting.

“Is he Chester King old?”

“No, not that old.”

“Is he Merlin old?”

Merlin stopped, turned his head slowly and regarded Eggsy with a long look. Eggsy grinned back at him in response. With a shake of his head and a roll of his eyes, Merlin resumed walking, pretending that the younger lad hadn’t just called him old. He spoke a little about the Manor, about the age, about the underground expansion. He was filling in the time before the ceremony, but Arthur’s voice was in his ear telling him to wait a little longer.

The tour around the manor involved showing Eggsy the familiar old stomping grounds. There was something that felt ghostlike and abandoned about the space. There was a fine layer of neglect over the surfaces that had once been kept sparkling clean by Eggsy and the other candidates. They took a walk down the same paths that Merlin had forced them to run with their brand new puppies. The grass was brown, and coated with a dusting of last night’s snow. Eggsy made an offhand comment that JB would be much happier here, instead of cooped up in the tiny one bed flat. Merlin responded that once he was officially a Kingsman Agent, the grounds would be fully available for JB to roam.

“You’ll recognize a few of the attendants today,” Merlin continued as they started towards the ceremony hall, located at the heart of the headquarters, several stories underground. “And a few you won’t, but rest assured that you will become well acquainted with them in time.”

“And Arthur?” Eggsy took a deep breath, standing there in front of the large wooden doors.

“You’ll be well acquainted with him too.” Merlin clasped a large, warm hand on Eggsy’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. He leaned in and spoke softly. “You are going to be incredible. You have nothing to prove, either to him, or to any of us.”

“Are you giving me away?”

Merlin looked a little surprised at that, and then he laughed. “You could put it that way, yes.”

“Could be worse.” Eggsy offered his elbow to Merlin, which elicited a laugh and a shake of the older man’s head and a mutter of refusal. “C’mon. You can’t call it giving me away, if you don’t take my arm. What kind of gentleman are you?”

With another laugh, Merlin hooked his arm with Eggsy’s. “It really ought to be you taking my arm,” he teased, before pushing open the large wooden door.

The space that was revealed to them was smaller than what Eggsy had imagined. There were a few agents in the room with them, and a few more present on the display of his headsets. He counted out the obvious Kingsman agents with their thick framed glasses. Eggsy recognized Percival, looking thinner and more hollow than he had when their paths first crossed after the railroad test. He also recognized Bors, older and more portly, with a serious expression. Roxy was looking surprisingly solemn as well, in a cleaned up suit. Eggsy tried to smile at her, and she glanced away.

There were at least five others present in the room with them, standing in file on either side of the worn, likely hundred year old runner. Spaces between them were filled with seven other figures, present for the ceremony from secure locations around the world, rendered in green on his heads up display. Eggsy could hear the soft murmur of their voices in his ear.

At the end of the room was a tall figure dressed in all black. Eggsy couldn’t recognize him from the back, just that he had broad shoulders and a slim waist. The old, yellow lighting in the room was uneven, so from certain angles the man’s hair looked black, then brown, then salt and pepper. The only real defining feature that Eggsy could discern was the slim, dark finished cane at his left side, with a brass colored handle, clutched by a signet ring-less hand. 

Merlin gave his arm a tug and then Eggsy was walking with him, down across the carpet towards the man in black. The lack of music, the dim lightning, the absence of joy made the moment feel less like a wedding and more like a funeral procession.

A thousand years crawled by, and when Eggsy was just a few steps behind, the man turned. Eggsy’s breath caught in his throat. Dark brown hair with the barest gray at the temples, handsome with the slightest cleft of his chin, light brown eyes framed by dark glasses, and a devastatingly familiar face.

The name escaped Eggsy’s lips like a ghost of a whisper. “Harry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is a working title, based temporarily on the opening chess move of the same name. It is likely due to change, as I am terrible at coming up with titles for stories.
> 
> I always love kudos and comments! You can also find me on tumblr reblogging all the Taron gifs at gotnewt.tumblr.com.


	2. The White King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we go back in time a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the great feedback from the first chapter! I got a little teary eyed, you guys are the best!

The paperwork that remained in Arthur’s absence left Merlin up to his eyeballs in recovery. It was obvious that Chester King had reached a point of mental and emotional exhaustion in regards to the organization, which may have explained his attitudes towards the end. So Merlin, in the interim, tried to pick up the pieces while the remaining agents found their footing. This meant he spent more days in the dining room above the tailor shop than he had previously spent in his entire career with the Kingsmen. His time away from the dining room table was often spent with or for Eggsy, finding him a small inexpensive flat, training him, promising him that a position would be waiting for him once the organization was back on its feet. With any luck it would be Galahad.

Galahad. Whose shadow appeared at the dining room door one night, while Merlin was up late trying to determine where a large amount of funds had vanished to on several occasions. Galahad, who he had given up for dead. Galahad, who he had loved so many years ago. 

It had been months. Harry’s body hadn’t been found, for obvious reasons -- it was impossible to identify bodies during the mass burials that occurred in the days following V-Day. Merlin had considered the body a loss, but it was a common enough practice among the Kingsman. Very few families were allowed the privilege of putting their loved ones to rest. Yet, even without a body, Merlin assumed the man good and gone.

Which likely explained the way he jumped to his feet, the way the chair clattered to the ground behind him, the way he reached for the pistol at his back. The man before him had to be an apparition, an impostor, a professional thief of lives and faces. The desire to shoot-to-kill was not just for his own sanity, but to protect Eggsy, whom he had grown very fond of.

The impostor raised his hands slowly. A shaft of wood in the shape of a cane was grasped in his left hand. “If you force me to stay like this for long, I will fall, Merlin.” He spoke in Harry’s unreplicable dry wit. 

Instinct, catered by Merlin’s thirty plus years by Harry’s side, was the only thing that got him to lower the gun and rush to the man’s side. His arms slid around the slighter man’s waist, hugging him close.

Harry dropped his arms, one going around Merlin’s shoulders, the other supporting his weight on the cane. A long moment passed, the sound of breathing the only thing left hanging in the space around them. 

When the silence broke, it was Merlin. “You were dead.”

“I was.”

“You’re alive.”

“I am.”

“Eggsy will murder you.”

“I know. And a well founded murder it will be.” 

Merlin could practically feel the eye roll in Harry’s fond sounding voice. He missed it.

The two men slowly parted, and Harry made his way to Galahad’s seat, at Arthur’s right hand. Merlin expressed some discomfort sitting at the head of the table, which Harry responded by complimenting Merlin exactly where he was. 

“It suits you.”

Merlin gave a dry laugh at the comment. “It doesn’t. I don’t care for this kind of mindless paper pushing, and I don’t have a replacement for my position. I can’t stay here.”

Harry could see straight through the sorry excuse, but he accepted it at face value. Thirty years of knowing Merlin meant that he understood the man’s desire to be behind computer screens, hacking into information networks and computer databases, offering critical commentary as needed and providing up to date tactics. He changed the subject by asking about the other agents, curious about their state: who survived, who died.

Of course, there would the matter of reintroducing Galahad to the agents, which was simple enough because he wouldn’t be the first, nor would he be the last agent to “return from the dead”. The complicated part, however, would be Eggsy.

“You can’t tell him,” Harry stated, blunt.

“He’s a wreck without you,” Merlin argued.

“And he’ll be a wreck to learn I’m alive. Leave it for now.”

“You’re putting Lancelot in a very difficult position.”

“And she will have to learn the importance of confidentiality, even in regards to Eggsy.”

Eventually, as the morning light began to filter into the dining room, Merlin brought up the position of Arthur again, this time in the context of the traditional vote. They had only done it once before, when they were younger, in their mid-thirties. At the time Merlin was still trying to integrate digital technology into the Kingsman weapon kit. Lancelot, Chester’s original code name, had seemed eager for change, but as soon as he stepped into place, he changed his tune. He approached newer technology with apprehension, and he looked down on Harry’s candidate: Eggsy’s father, who would later be responsible for saving their lives.

The voting tradition remained the same. All upper tier agents were permitted to make a vote for another upper tier agent, excluding themselves. This included code named agents outside of the traditional nine including Viviane, Tristan and Isolde, Mordred and Morgain. The only exception was Merlin, as he oversaw the reception of votes. If his integrity was more questionable, it would have been the perfect opportunity to fix them. Certainly it had been done in the past, but this Merlin was not the sort to seek personal gain. It would have been a goddamn pain the ass to even try.

With the advent of technology, the votes were delivered discreetly and encrypted to Merlin after the agents had met to officiate the election. They rolled in slowly over the course of twenty-one days, hardly the quickest vote, but certainly not the longest. The longest had taken 735 days.

During this time, Merlin had set Harry up in the dormitories, providing him with a temporary home. Because he wanted to maintain some discretion in regards to his protege, Merlin forbid Harry from returning to the comfort of his home.

“He visits, sometimes,” Merlin explained. “He misses you.”

Living in the dormitories also allowed Harry the indulgence of viewing the world through Merlin’s eyes. It was a particular privilege that, had it been anyone else, Merlin would have flat out refused.

Harry watched from Merlin’s console, on its single oversized screen. He watched Eggsy in training; Eggsy’s determination and hard work; Eggsy’s desperate need to prove himself, Eggsy’s stubbornness. He also watched Eggsy confiding with Merlin about his regret and his feelings, vulnerable in a way Harry never quite got to witness when he was alive. 

“Merlin?” Eggsy asked, and Harry could hear the voice through the speakers, clear as day. “Do you think Harry’d still be pissed at me for not shooting JB?” He was cradling the dog close.

“It wasn’t your inability to shoot the dog, Eggsy. It was your bad attitude following your rejection that made Harry so disappointed in you.”

“You think he’d still be ‘disappointed’?” The younger man was doing everything he could to not make eye contact.

Harry watched Merlin’s gaze tilt slightly, and he could just imagine the look his old friend was giving the boy. A slightly furrowed brow, a serious expression, pursed lips. Harry leaned over and pushed the button to speak, but Merlin was already responding: “He absolutely would not be disappointed with you, Eggsy. You more than proven yourself. Harry would have been so proud of you.” Surprisingly eloquent for a Scotsman. 

Eggsy edged closer, and he avoided giving Merlin a look asking for permission, but he rested his head on the gentleman’s shoulder regardless. Harry tried to ignore the tightness in his belly that he could only describe as jealousy, though he wasn't certain to whom the jealousy was intended. 

Harry knew better than to inquire into Merlin and Eggsy's relationship. He turned away from the monitor then, not wanting to watch any more. He could still hear them, Merlin's soft brogue reassuring the boy, encouraging him. The codename Galahad was dropped on a few occasions between the two. Harry supposed that even alive like this, his permanent physical injuries would prevent him from everyday fieldwork. 

Even without the injuries, keeping the Galahad name was going to prove impossible for Harry, when Merlin approached him with the final tally for the votes. Bors had received a fair share, as did Kay, but the majority had come in for Galahad. Harry sunk into his chair, and Merlin gestured to the seat at his left. "That's your seat now," he pointed out.

"No. I don't want it," Harry protested in a rare display of childish indignance.

"You have no choice in the matter, _Arthur_."

"Don't call me that."

"Arthur. Arthur." Merlin's lips were splitting into an amused grin. He was getting some sort of enjoyment out of tormenting his old friend.

"Stop. Stop, damn it." Harry slammed his hand against the table.

A silence hung between them. It filled the air, heavy, thick and uncomfortable. Harry suddenly couldn't breathe. He felt the weight of four other Arthurs before him on his shoulders. Men he respected and men he'd grown to hate. Harry had never wanted the position, he had expected to die in the field before the previous Arthur would die from old age or disease. The position of Arthur was a position of power, but it was also a position of paper and responsibility. Arthur was not intended to run in the field, but rather supervise and administer orders and directives. Arthur was meant to live, not die like the agents around him. This was not how Harry wanted to go. This was not where he wanted to squander the rest of his life.

Merlin seemed to understand. He had fetched Harry a glass of scotch. It sat between them, as Merlin took Galahad's now vacant seat.

"I don't want this."

"Galahad already died in the field. He was brave. He had a long history of successes. He died the greatest death a Kingsman can ask for, but Arthur must live." Merlin delivered a speech that had long been sitting in the depths of his mind, a speech that the previous Merlin had given him all those years ago when he stepped into his shoes. He had remembered the warning, that a truly good king will ascend the throne with apprehension, and that Merlin must be there to support him.

Harry wondered when Merlin developed a talent for reassurance. "I can't abdicate the throne?"

"Not an option, I'm afraid.” Merlin shifted slightly, obviously uncomfortable in Galahad’s seat, a seat he had seen occupied for nearly his entire career with the Kingsman by one single man. He had a job to do, however, so he proceeded. “There will be a coronation, of course.”

“Of course,” Harry echoed, with a slightly sour expression. “Will I have to give a speech?”

Merlin raised his eyebrows. “Do you want to? I recall that the previous Arthur gave quite the rousing speech.”

Harry bristled. “Absolutely not. Chester always had quite the flair for elocution. I would rather pass.” He also remembered the speech, Chester positioning himself in front of all eight table agents, in front of the other code named specialists. He had puffed out his chest and delivered a long, proud message to his “people”. Harry had made fun of him the whole way. He remembered Merlin chuckling under his breath. There were some people suited for being in charge, Harry was not one of them.

Merlin, on the other hand, thought quite the opposite. Harry would be the change the Kingsman so sorely need. After nearly a hundred years of stagnant behavior, Harry could see to it that things from here on out would be different, so long as he did the job, that is. “Then it will be a simple ceremony. You stand up, you accept the position, and we proceed as usual.” Merlin paused, thoughtful. “I will have to extract Excalibur from the vaults for the first time in seventeen years, though.”

“I’d always wondered, it’s not _really_ Excalibur, is it?”

Harry never quite got the answer he was looking for. Merlin avoided the question, and changed the subject to the matter of arranging the coronation. He was patient with Harry’s resistance; he had expected such would be the case. He also knew Harry’s sense of responsibility, and by presenting him with a scenario (a mission, as he referred to it) he would not be able to refuse. He would just put up a big stink about it.

Which Harry did, all the way up to the ceremony.

As soon as the name Galahad fell from his shoulders and he became Arthur, he stopped his complaints. It was exactly as Merlin expected. Harry was going to be a reluctant, but a great leader for the organization. Kingsman would be in very good hands. There was, of course, the matter of filling in the position directly beneath Arthur.

Guinevere.

Merlin knew the answer before Harry even spoke a word of it. One night, over a quiet dinner in the dining hall above the tailor shop, the new Arthur brought up his proposal. “It has to be Eggsy. I don’t trust anyone else as much as I trust him.”

“Being an standard agent is one thing, Arthur. But Guinevere is a whole other level of responsibility and skill. Are you certain you want to risk Eggsy like that?”

Harry paused and slowly lowered his spoon. “You know Eggsy’s talents even better than I do. I know what you think of him.”

“He could die.”

“Same as if he were to become Galahad.”

Merlin pursed his lips. Attachment was part of the job, he had gotten that warning from a previous Merlin. Harry was the first agent he had developed feelings for, but he certainly wasn’t the last. It made the deaths so much more difficult. He remembered James, with his warm smile and easygoing personality. He watched him die and was heartbroken. Harry’s death hurt even more. Eggsy, however, was the first non-agent that Merlin had grown to love. It would be the first time he had the power to do something to prevent him from entering this dangerous world of espionage. Eggsy didn’t have to join the organization. Eggsy would be able to remain Eggsy, for the rest of his life.

But that would be a fate even worse than death.

“He’s good, Merlin. I watched the footage from his singular mission. He’s the only one who can do this.”

“I know.” Merlin agreed reluctantly. 

“I have to have him.”

Merlin raised his eyebrows at that, looking amused for the first time since Harry brought up the subject of Guinevere. “In what way?”

Harry looked a little caught off guard, and then he was shaking his head, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. “I’ve been watching you with Eggsy. Don’t pretend you don’t feel the same way.”

“Harry, you, more than anyone, should be aware of my feelings towards every last one of you. Eggsy means the same to me as you, as Lancelot, as Percival…”

“I mean more to you than Percival.”

Merlin let out something of a soft, reluctant sigh. He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was true, and it was obvious. They started at nearly the same time in the organization together. At the time they were both the youngest in their departments, and they both wanted to see digital technology properly integrated into the Kingsman organization. What had begun as a difficult, disagreeable relationship took a sharp turn somewhere in their second year, and Merlin had never been closer to anyone.

Those days were long behind them.

“Yes,” Merlin finally admit, though Harry knew the answer. “You do.”

“And Eggsy means as much to you as I do,” Harry appended.

“No. Not-- This isn’t about me, Arthur. We have to get back on track.” It was a rare moment to see Merlin flustered. Harry enjoyed it immensely.

Harry, formerly known as Galahad, shifted in Arthur’s seat, and his amused expression turned serious. “I know. My apologies. I understand the risks, Merlin, I really do. I don’t want Eggsy to die on duty. I don’t even want him to get hurt. But he wants this, and I want this for him.” Harry paused. He hesitated. “I want this for me, if you’ll permit a moment of selfishness.”

The two men contemplated over a long moment of silence, occasionally sharing a few glances. The choice was obvious. It was more than obvious. Eventually Merlin broke the silence with a light chuckle. “Shall I act as your proxy and make the proposal for you? Do you want me to get down on one knee? Or do you want to do it yourself?”

“Make the proposal, please. I’m not quite ready for him to know I’m…”

“Not dead?”

Harry made an expression of suffering.

“I’ll see to it that it gets taken care of, but I’m not getting down on one knee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks very much to my beta littlegreenpiper. My apologies for not resolving the cliffhanger from last week, but Chapter 3 (which does pick up where we left off) and 4 are both written, and are going through the beta machine as we speak. Hang on, we're in for a long ride!


	3. King's Gambit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eggsy does not forgive Harry so easily and insists on maintaining a professional relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the delay on chapter 3. I wanted to finish chapter 5 before posting, but it was slow going. Thankfully I've finally moved on to chapter 6, so you finally get Eggsy's reaction to discovering Harry is alive. Hope I don't disappoint.
> 
> As always so much gratitude to my beta littlegreenpiper, who has also been tasked with the stressful job of keeping me grounded and too frustrated over my writing. And also thanks to you guys for reading, I am so touched and excited.

Time seemed to grind to a halt as Eggsy grappled with the sudden conflict of emotions that welled inside him. He didn’t know if he wanted to punch the older gentleman across the face, or throw himself against his broad chest and sob into his black suit. The best he could manage was the man’s name, croaked out from his throat like a strangled gasp. He felt like a fool, standing here in front of all these people who had known, for fuck knows how long, that Galahad - no, Arthur - was alive.

Everything seemed to condense itself into one single cruel joke, and he was the punchline. 

“Eggsy…” Harry spoke the young man’s nickname in a low volume, like a hushed whisper, so quiet Eggsy wondered if he had imagined it.

Harry looked as though he walked straight out of Eggsy’s dreams. He looked exactly the same: handsome as ever, a little worn around the edges, soft brown hair with a faintest dusting of grey at the temples, and eyes that seemed to shift from green to brown and back again with the slightest movement. The black suit fit his figure perfectly, across his broad chest and shoulders and buttoned at his slim waist. A golden tie with black and white stripes was perfectly knotted at the hollow of his neck. He was tailored to perfection.

Merlin was speaking, but Eggsy couldn’t hear him. He was too fixated on the gentleman in front of him: the ghost of Harry looking back at him with a serious expression. The moment, under any other circumstance, should have been romantic and poetic. It felt like something that should have come from a classic novel: the faithful wife, heartbroken over the news of her seafaring husband and his capsized ship, thrilled when he waltzes back into her life one fateful, stormy evening.

Except, Eggsy supposed, this was nothing like that.

“Welcome to Kingsman, Guinevere.” Harry was holding out a hand, and Eggsy knew for sure that he was speaking now. Fourteen pairs of eyes were fixed on him in this single moment. He swallowed.

Harry was looking at him expectantly, head just barely tilted in a questioning expression.

Eggsy took in a deep breath, before lifting his hand and grasping Harry’s offer. He gave it a firm squeeze and then they were shaking hands. 

Warm. Harry’s skin was warm to the touch in a way that made Eggsy’s toes curl in his shiny new Kingsman oxfords. It was the kind of touch that confirmed that Harry was, in fact, alive, and not an apparition or a hallucination, that he hadn’t fallen off the wagon and overdosed in a back alley somewhere, and Kingsman wasn’t just a wonderful-horrible fever dream.

“Congratulations, Guinevere!” Roxy’s hand on Eggsy’s shoulder was exactly what he needed to break him from his reverie. He turned to her and mustered up a grin. Harry aside, he was happy. He finally got what he had been working towards for over a year. He wasn’t going to let the old man fuck this up for him.

“Thanks, Ro- Lancelot.”

She pulled him into a hug, and turned his face towards his ear so she could whisper in a volume that only the two of them could hear. “I wanted to tell you, I really did. I’m so sorry.”

Eggsy couldn’t blame her. It would have been so easy to blame everyone else for keeping this secret from him, but the truth was Arthur was the boss. Roxanne, so far, had proven herself to be astounding at maintaining confidentiality and classification. If Harry - if _Arthur_ \- demanded that the agents not reveal his status of living, then they had to obey. He hugged her back, squeezing her against himself like clinging to an anchor.

“You’re going to be great,” Roxy added, as she pried herself from Eggsy’s embrace.

“Course. I’m already great.” Eggsy tried to make himself sound confident, but when he cast his gaze in Harry’s general direction, he felt his stomach drop. Merlin had been emphasizing the close relationship between Arthur and Guinevere. It was one thing to have confidence in himself, it was another thing to have confidence in a man who had pretended to be dead for months.

For a while after Roxy had pulled herself away, everything seemed to happen in a blur of people. Eggsy couldn’t tell one face from another, but he accepted their congratulations, shook hands; said his thanks and smiled. It occurred to him later that maybe he should have memorized those new faces, but he’d have to try it another day. His thoughts and his gaze kept drifting back to Harry, but he actively avoided the older man as much as he could, weaving in and out of the small crowd. Dodging him, of course, could only last so long, as the agents returned to their business and their missions, leaving him alone in the old room with Harry on one side, and Merlin on the other.

Under normal circumstances, it would have been a fantasy come to life.

“Eggsy,” Harry was speaking in that warm, baritone voice of his, “I want to congratulate you again. You earned this. You have more than proven yourself as a capable Kingsman.”

Every fiber in Eggsy’s being was telling him to give Harry some lip, but he managed to resist it. Harry was his elder and, now, his boss. He wanted this job, and he was going to have to live with the consequences. Besides, Merlin was there with him, and his respect for the older man extended far enough that he kept his lip buttoned. He had had four days to invent someone for Arthur’s shoes, but Harry was the furthest thing to come to his mind.

Eggsy had even thought of Chester King, reincarnated or zombified, before he thought of Harry. 

Merlin’s large, warm hand on Eggsy’s shoulder brought him back, same as Roxy had earlier. “And now, as tradition dictates, the two of you will have twenty-four hours to spend together. This is appropriate, as we have yet to finish furnishing your new home, Eggsy.”

“Did you know the position came with a house?”

“Wh-what?” Thoughts of depression and anger flew from Eggsy’s mind. “A _house?_ Like a real, fucking house? Can I bring my mum with me? And my sister?”

“Yes, you absolutely can. Once a Kingsman is properly employed and his home is furnished--”

“That means with proper security measures in place,” Harry added. Eggsy wanted to punch him.

“Their family can be securely placed and kept safe. You still have to maintain a certain level of discretion, but you can be with your mother again. And your baby sister,” Merlin was just barely smiling, but he was obviously pleased to at least be allowed to deliver the young man some good news. He had been able to tell from the moment Harry’s name passed Eggsy’s lips that his reaction was anything but positive. Merlin had warned Harry.

The two older men shared a look over Eggsy’s head.

“Until then, you will remain in Arthur’s care. Arthur, your home has been reinstated in your name and your belongings have been relocated from the dormitories. You can move back in tonight, and as you know, I’ve left everything largely unchanged.” Merlin shifted slightly, pulling his clipboard in against his chest. He surveyed the two men before him. “At ease then, gentlemen.”

Eggsy wanted to reach an arm out to Merlin and grab hold of him, beg him to stay and act as some sort of buffer between him and Harry, but he didn’t. Instead he watched the older man step out of the room, leaving him anxious, annoyed and staring at the man he had thought dead for months.

“I know you’re upset,” Harry began, but Eggsy cut him off with a raised hand.

“No. You ain’t allowed to say shit like that.” Eggsy was shaking his head, emotions bubbling over. “You ain’t allowed to just come waltzing back into _my_ life, when you’ve been dead for four months. You don’t know fuck all about how i feel right now.” Though it occurred to Eggsy, as he stood there, face twisted into a scowl, that he was only confirming Harry’s assumption of his current emotional state. In the moment, though, he didn’t care.

Harry managed a soft, frustrated sigh, one hand tucked gracefully into the pocket of his suit trousers, his other hand gripping the wooden cane by his side. Merlin had warned him, and he had warned himself of the consequences of not telling Eggsy about his return. At the time, it felt like the right decision, to protect him and his family until he was officially a Kingsman. Seeing the younger man now, standing in front of him, looking gorgeous in that perfectly tailored off-white suit made to his exact specifications, made Harry regret his decisions. He did not have very many regrets in his life, but this was proving to be one of them. Eggsy was proving to be the source of, or the result of, a the bulk of his regrets.

“I oughta punch you.” Eggsy’s shoulders were heaving with his deep, angry breathing. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides. His face was red. “I oughta kick your ass and quit.” And then Eggsy’s whole demeanor sagged slightly. “But I need this, and my mum needs this.”

Harry took a deep breath, as if about to speak, but Eggsy wasn’t finished yet. The young man took several steps backwards. He was finding his composure again, straightening out his shoulders. “There ain’t no picking up where we left off, Arthur. Whatever we-- whatever we _had_ , fuck that. I’ll be your Guinevere, but this ain’t nothing more than a professional relationship.”

Harry knew he deserved that, but it still felt like a punch in the gut. He took another deep breath. “Of course,” he responded, keeping his tone of voice easy and even. “Though you will have to permit me to go over what the position entails. We can remain here, in the manor, if you prefer.”

“I can’t even look at you right now,” Eggsy’s voice had fallen. His gaze was turned towards the heavy wooden door. “I fucking… I need time. I gotta get outta here.” He didn’t let Harry stop him, though he heard the sound of him moving over his shoulder, the rustling of stiff suiting that told him Harry was reaching an arm out for him.

Eggsy caught his breath when he stepped out into the hallway. He could feel his extremities shaking. His fingers had gone cold, and he flexed them, only now realizing just how tight his fists had gotten. His memory of the space drove him through the manor, toward the dormitories where he had spent all that time with those other candidates, with the mirror replaced as if it had never been broken. He kept going past that until the found Merlin’s office, plainly decorated with large monitors and an oversized console.

The older man, slim and broad shouldered like Harry, was undressing. He had discarded the suit jacket and waistcoat. The regulation, thick framed glasses had been swapped back out for his much more familiar top framed spectacles. He was rubbing a hand over his smooth, bald head, looking stressed.

It was probably the most inappropriate thing possible for Eggsy to do, but he barged in without announcing himself and launched a fist at his mentor’s unsuspecting face.

Merlin was knocked back a few steps. At first he looked angry, then confused, but as his gaze settled on Eggsy his expression relaxed, and he rubbed his bruised cheekbone. The skin was already blossoming red. “I deserved that,” he muttered as he straightened himself out, turning to look at the younger man, still standing there with one fist raised, the other tightened at his waist. 

“How long did you know.” It wasn’t a question.

“About two weeks after the incident with Valentine.” Merlin was calm when he spoke, despite the developing bruise on his cheek. He took a seat, and gestured to one of the chairs beside him.

Eggsy’s arms relaxed and he collapsed into the chair, with a heavy sigh. He was still angry, and he wanted to punch something a second time, but he didn’t. He thumped his fist on his thigh instead. Merlin regarded him for a long moment. He knew; Harry knew. It had been a bad decision on his old friend’s part, but who was he to disobey his wishes. Harry Hart was not the first Kingsman to die and return, and he certainly won’t be the last. Very often those dead Kingsmen will stay dead to their loved ones, a means of protecting them. Heartstrings can only be tugged so often, and returning to life so many times can only lead to inevitable disappointment when the death is finally real.

“He appeared one evening, looking much like he does now, and resumed working as though nothing had happened. I didn’t ask, nor did I care to ask what happened.” Merlin was watching Eggsy’s body language carefully. He was pleasantly surprised that, given Eggsy’s attitude and emotion, he was going that extra mile to try and not wrinkle his new suit. Under normal circumstances, Eggsy would have been folding his arms across his chest and pouting. “Kingsmen die, and sometimes we hope that they will return to us. They often don’t, but when they do…”

“I’m so fucking pissed,” Eggsy spat. “I thought I meant something. He coulda-- you coulda-- Rox coulda--!” He could barely get the words out. He wasn’t even sure exactly with whom he thought he meant something. All three of them had become the most important people in the world to him, next to his mother and his sister, and in one moment all three of them had disappointed him. 

“You know well enough that Lancelot couldn’t.”

“I ain’t mad at _her_...”

“You’re mad at me.”

“I am! Fuck you and fuck him!” 

Merlin was blessedly patient in this moment. It was a rarity, but Harry and Eggsy seemed to do well to try his patience, and he had gotten plenty of practice over the past several months. “Will you feel better if you punch him too?”

Eggsy went quiet. “He’d probably fire me,” he muttered.

“He’d be a fool not to. And since the Harry I’ve known for thirty two years is, in fact, a fool, he won’t.”

Eggsy was startled into a laugh, but he caught himself and bit down on his lip instead. Merlin tried not to look too chuffed at the reaction. “Can I stay here tonight?” Eggsy asked in a quiet voice.

Merlin’s brow furrowed, and he wasn’t connected to Harry today, so he couldn’t hear his disappointed voice in his ear. He could, however, imagine it. Harry, despite knowing that Eggsy’s reaction wasn’t going to be very positive, had still been looking forward to the “wedding night” (so to speak). “Well,” Merlin began slowly, “It’s a little unorthodox.”

“Kingsman tradition says twenty four hours, but I bet it doesn’t say when those twenty four hours should begin. If I see him right now, I might kill him. Tomorrow. I’ll try it tomorrow.” Eggsy had a fair point, and there was little Merlin could do to argue it. He agreed, reluctantly.

Eggsy learned, with a little bit of prying, that Roxy had been living here until her own home had been fully furnished. She was gone now, but it had taken longer than usual as the organization was shorthanded in those weeks following the Valentine incident. It also turned out that Tristan and Isolde came and went from these dorms, their homes of choice changing every few months or so to protect their identities.

It took a bit of effort, but Eggsy eventually recalled the pair from the Guinevere ceremony: a tall, slim, handsome man with floppy hair, and a breathtakingly beautiful woman at his side, both barely middle aged. He couldn’t remember, however, which was which. His knowledge of Arthurian mythos shamelessly placed the man as Tristan, and the woman as Isolde. They were, if he recalled correctly, undercover specialists.

“Do you also live here?” Eggsy asked, as he followed Merlin through the hallways towards the room that would be his home, at least for the rest of the evening.

“No. I spend nights here, but I don’t live here.”

“I bet you don’t live anywhere. I bet, secretly, you’re a robot.”

Merlin stopped mid stride and glanced back over his shoulder at the young boy. Sometimes Eggsy had moments where he seemed so much older and so much wiser than his years, and other times he said things like that. Merlin lifted his brows in a look of disbelief.

Eggsy laughed. At least he was able to laugh right now, able to squelch his inner turmoil for a bit of badly placed humor. He had come to really enjoy teasing Merlin. It was, perhaps, difficult to call it a hobby, but it made the time pass.

In the meanwhile, Merlin hadn’t yet reconnected his headset to Harry’s. There had only been one moment when he sent a communication to him in the form of a message to let him know that Guinevere was safe and would be staying at the manor until further notice. Harry responded with a rather curt, **Bruised?**

Merlin didn’t respond, but he certainly was bruised, and it was rather insightful of Harry to realize that he had, in fact, gotten punched in the face.

A pair of familiar cotton pyjamas were offered to Eggsy when night fell. They were the same sort he wore during his time training, and likely worth more than any other pair of sleep clothes he had ever owned in his entire life. Merlin led him through the manor toward a rather plush looking room, romantically furnished in a way that made the space look as well tailored as the suits the Kingsmen wore. Eggsy had been expecting to stay in one of the barrack style dorms, and he was pleasantly surprised. When he asked Merlin why the candidates were not allowed to experience this extravagance, Merlin replied, “Because I enjoyed watching you all suffer.”

Eggsy remembered, obviously, the torture of thinking one of them had been thrown out of a plane without a parachute. Merlin definitely had a certain affection towards tormenting his candidates.

“Good night, Eggsy.” Merlin pulled the door shut, leaving the young boy in the dormitory.

Harry’s voice clicked in his ear. “It’s dusty.”

“You’re welcome.”

The home was the same. There was a layer of dust across every surface, but Merlin had kept the place largely untouched. Harry found it discomfiting. He was grateful for the sameness, but it was a reminder that to the rest of the world he had been dead. He climbed the stairs to his office, to the red room, wallpapered with the front pages of the Sun throughout his thirty year career as a Kingsman. “How badly did he hurt you?”

Merlin’s chuckle came through on the headset, clear as day, as if he were sitting there next to him in his dusty office. “He’s been training. It was quite the punch. I may have some explaining to do to the other Agents come morning.”

“I’m sure it suits you.”

“The last time anyone punched me that hard, we were fighting on the floor in your kitchen. You are the reason I have a deviated septum.”

Harry remembered that: the two of them so annoyed, so frustrated and so sick of each other that they ended up in a brawl that broke Merlin’s nose and split Harry’s bottom lip. It was also the day they finally stopped disagreeing, and started getting along. “Did he break your nose?”

“No, thankfully.”

It was actually sort of comforting for Harry, to settle into his leather chair, to listen to Merlin’s voice speaking to him through the headset. His old computer was gone, but he already suspected that Eggsy had taken that with him. They talked quietly, the way they used to when they were younger. The subject was very different, but that was expected.

Merlin reminded Harry about his expectations in training Guinevere, about the rules and regulations he had to put in place, as well as explaining the significance and purpose of the position. Harry, between Merlin’s monologuing, asked about Eggsy. Will he listen. Will he forgive. Will he accept. Merlin answered them all as patiently and as honestly as he could. The answer was almost always, “He likely won’t, but isn’t that what you like so much about him?”

Like much of the time in their youth, Harry eventually fell asleep with Merlin’s voice in his ear, still sitting in his leather chair. At some point, his body on autopilot, he had gotten up from the seat, stripped out of the tailored suit, leaving it pooled on the floor, and climbed into his bed with nothing but the bottoms of his own pyjamas.

When morning broke, sunlight pouring into Harry’s bedroom, he woke. He took a moment to adjust to his surroundings, before recalling that he was back in his own house and Eggsy hadn’t gone home with him after the ceremony. It isn’t as though he expected to wake up with Eggsy in his bed, but he had hoped for a much warmer reaction. He hauled himself out of bed, and slowly hobbled his way down towards his kitchen, supporting himself against the wall in the absence of his cane.

Harry had just rounded the bend in his stairs when he saw someone sitting in his dining room. The sleep was shaken from him, suddenly aware that he had been caught unarmed in his own home. It was a Kingsman’s worse fear. He slowly turned his head. The figure was sitting comfortably, one leg crossed over the other, arms draped over the back of the chair, at the end of the table, snap back with an exposed brim, a worn puffer, and baggy jeans.

Eggsy made a smug sort of sound, his gaze turning up towards Harry. Harry, who was barely dressed, with a headful of sleep mussed hair. It should have been better than any fantasy he had ever come up with on his own, but it wasn’t. Not today. He made an exaggerated, nonchalant gesture with one hand. “Kingsman security must be shit, if I can sneak into your home at three in the morning, and you don’t wake up.”

“Shit, Eggsy.” Harry suddenly felt very exposed.

The younger man shifted in the seat, sitting up a bit straighter, uncrossing his legs. “I gotta get through twenty four hours with your fucking ass. I’ve been here for four hours. That means I only gotta put up with twenty more, you got me?”

“Fair enough.”

“This don’t mean that I’ve forgiven you.” Eggsy was leaning forward now, pointing a finger at Harry with a scowl on his face. “I’m doing this cuz Merlin says I got to.” He paused, and his face sort of rumpled thoughtfully. “And I gotta learn about this fucking Guinevere thing.”

Harry probably lingered in the stairwell a moment longer than he should have, before he retreated in an attempt to pull himself together. He raked his fingers through his hair, and threw on a pair of dress trousers, a shirt, a tie, and a soft jumper. He looked at himself in the mirror and checked for the growth of stubble on his cheeks. It was serviceable. He ran his hands through his hair one more time, before finally emerging from his bedroom, cane in hand.

Eggsy was on his feet now. He was looking up the stairwell at Harry. There was a sudden feeling of deja vu, the last time he had seen Harry was like this, Harry scolding him as he climbed down to meet him. Harry looking down at him. Harry disappointed and angry with him. The only difference was that now Harry hobbled a bit with each step, supported himself with the cane in one hand. He looked a little more fragile, and a little less tough. Eggsy’s hands tightened into fists at his side. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

Harry approached the moment with apprehension, but they were both professionals with various degrees of experience, and despite Eggsy’s obvious repulsion in being here with him, he also exhibited a remarkable amount of patience. Harry explained the role of Guinevere in detail. He explained what it entailed, what would be expected and what would be required of him. He was forthcoming with the fact that Guinevere was a position of power within the Kingsman, but also that it was the most dangerous position. He admitted that Guinevere has seen more replacements over the organization's near hundred year history than any other agent.

When Harry lead Eggsy back towards the tailor shop, back towards the tube that would take them towards the manner, he explained the most important detail: Guinevere’s mission statement. “I understand, Eggsy, that you don’t wish to get along with me, but we will have to work closely. I will be an active part of all your missions.”

Eggsy didn’t respond to that. He had been respectfully quiet so far, listening to Harry, trying his best to absorb the information while trying to grapple with the fact that here was Harry, here was the man he had spent months accepting was dead. The thought wheeled itself over and over through his mind, like a personal type of torture. He was grateful when they finally arrived at the manor and Merlin was there to greet them, to take over with some physical training.

Harry did more than just watch from the side lines, the way Eggsy imagined he would. He threw himself wholeheartedly into the training, displaying a certain aptitude for fighting with a weak side and a cane. One particular sparring session even resulted in Eggsy getting thrown onto his back, lying in the grass and staring up at the blue sky. He was panting.

Slowly, the older gentleman approached and looked down at him. Harry nudged him with the foot of his cane. “Come on. Can’t have you saying that you got your ass handed to you by a crippled old man.” He said the words with the slightest smile on his lips, and for just the briefest of moments, Eggsy’s lips turned upwards into a similar expression, before disappearing into a look of frustration.

It was probably the closest the two men got to getting along the whole day.

That wasn’t to say that Harry didn’t try, but he always had a difficult time doling out his emotions, it was part of what made him such an effective Kingsman. Things like heartfelt apologies were stuck in his throat and in his head, and he was unable to lay them out for people to understand. Eggsy, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. He displayed his annoyance and anger with Harry right on his sleeve.

Their twenty-four hours together whittled down to fifteen, then ten. Merlin was there as a buffer for a majority of the time, a blessed relief for Eggsy. As they got to seven hours, and the sun had long since sunk beneath the horizon, they began to make the trek back to London.

Eggsy was tired and sore, and his mind was overflowing with information. The two older gentlemen had brought him down, deep into the depths of the manor to show him a hallway of portraits. They were fairly small and a little dusty, but they represented the Agents who had given their lives as Guinevere. There were eight, lined up in a row. The ninth portrait was an empty frame. Merlin explained that because Guinevere had lost his life for other reasons, he didn’t deserve a portrait hung in the hall. Chester King as Arthur was given the same treatment.

Seeing the row of them, seven men and one woman, brought a sort of gravity to the position. Most were young, the placards listing most as having died in their thirties.One had lasted until their fifties, but Merlin informed him that the man had been placed in the role only three years prior. Guinevere tended to live a short life, everything at risk for Arthur.

“For Kingsman,” Harry had corrected over his shoulder.

This was going to be his life from now on. He had spent all those months training with the hope of becoming Galahad, but little did he know he would be training for something so much greater. Eggsy’s mouth had dried up in the mean time, and he found it difficult to swallow. When he looked across at Harry, sitting elegantly, though a bit worn out, in the transport tube, his feelings of anger ebbed for just a moment. He was left with a feeling of cautious pride.

Harry, despite everything, trusted him enough to offer him that position, with the hopes that Eggsy would succeed where the others had failed. Harry, who had been so disappointed in his performance the day he ‘died’, was anything but disappointed.

Eggsy spent three hours with Harry in uncomfortable silence. The older man was trying-- he made them each a cup of tea, which went cold and untouched. He poured them each a tumbler of scotch, which they both drank slowly. Eggsy wanted to ask what had happened to him, but he didn’t. He also wanted to apologize for his bad attitude, but he didn’t. There was a part of him that, no matter how infuriated he was, was still overwhelmed with joy that Harry was alive. He still wanted to throw himself into his arms and be reassured that he was real. Though, he supposed, getting his ass handed to him by a crippled version of Harry was reassurance enough.

At some point, after Harry had excused himself and retired to his bedroom upstairs, Eggsy had fallen asleep in the drawing room, curled up in a large leather armchair.

When Merlin arrived the next morning to bring Eggsy to his new home, the total number of hours spent together had reached nearly thirty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading, and for putting up with me! I hope it was a worthwhile chapter! Your comments have been super duper encouraging, and I really want to churn out something good for you! You guys are the best. I love this fandom.


	4. Queen's Blunder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eggsy kicks Dean's face in and pretends to be a tailor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the slow update, especially since this is a pretty short chapter! Chapters 5 and 6 are written, and need to be beta'd, so those will hopefully go up sooner than later. As always thanks to my friend and beta littlegreenpiper for being so patient with me and listening to all my constant chatting about this story.

Harry and Merlin had gathered around the large monitor at the tactician’s console. Eggsy had given them an advance warning, had told them not to get involved. When they watched him leave the manor in one of his handsome new suits, perfectly tailored to suit his figure, fully equipped from head to toe, they suspected something was up. It didn’t help that Eggsy had left a trail of activity a mile long. He was going to need some coaching in the subtlety department.

The two older men watched footage of Eggsy walking down the street towards the Black Prince. The door swung open to reveal his mother, Dean, and his army of cronies. There seemed to be a long pause, as Eggsy’s gaze swept across the pub, taking in his surroundings, and then he was speaking up, interrupting his step father.

Compared to Eggsy’s attitude since the ceremony a couple days ago, he was playing up the well groomed, calm, collected gentleman. 

Merlin made Harry budge over, and he tapped on a few of the keys on his console, opening up a secondary screen in the corner of the monitor. It was a second camera angle, one that he had installed into the pub to keep an eye on Eggsy’s mother. It offered an attractive view of Eggsy, gesturing to himself nonchalantly.

“Oh, you mean this?” The young man’s voice piped in through the speakers from his headset. He looked proud of himself. He carried himself with a regal air, not unlike when he masqueraded as Chester King in order to infiltrate the Valentine compound. He carried that umbrella like a professional gentleman, offering to take his mother away from that place to the new home that had been procured for him.

Dean, predictably, did not take well to the idea of his wife being stolen from him. He took to threatening Eggsy, insulting him and his imaginary new boss. Harry sat up straighter in his seat as realization set in, as he watched Eggsy’s line of vision still, as he watched in the corner, in the secondary screen Eggsy coming to a stop. Then came the words.

“Manners. Maketh. Man.” Punctuated with each lock, just as Harry had done it when they first met over a year ago.

“That cheeky bastard.” Merlin was chuckling, amused at what he was about to witness. He had been right here when Harry had ripped into those bastards the first time, and now he was going to watch Harry’s protege do the exact same thing. 

Even the opening move was identical.

Harry was captivated. Despite the fact that for the past couple weeks, Eggsy had been distant and unforgiving, there was still a small part of him that respected Harry, that looked up to him and admired him. It gave him an ounce of hope, that perhaps he hadn’t ruined everything between the two of them.

Eggsy’s fighting style was different from Harry’s. He was scrappy, his style disorganized and difficult to predict. It was a classic case of nature versus nurture. Despite Merlin’s determined training, in the end the boy’s style still rang of his youth, of his lifestyle before finding Kingsman.

It was five against one. Dean had only been knocked out for a minute before he was struggling back onto his feet and lunging at Eggsy. The others had been present for Harry’s original fight, so they approached with apprehension, determined to stand up for their guvnor, while also not getting their asses completely handed to them.

That, of course, would not be the case. Eggsy was seeing to it that they were each getting their fair share of his fist to their faces.

Merlin pushed Harry aside. “Guinevere! Behind you on the left!”

Eggsy ducked, just barely in time to watch Rottweiler’s fist connect with Poodle’s face, knocking the shorter, stouter man backwards into the bartop. “Merlin!?”

“You don’t really think Arthur managed that fight alone, do you? Knife, on your right.”

The young man lifted his umbrella and gave it a twist, knocking the knife out of Doberman’s hand, before swinging the length of the cane against the tall man’s temple, causing him to stumble to the hardwood floor with a sound of pain. “I thought I told you to stay outta this.”

“Once you put on the suit, I can’t. Now, if you continue to talk to me, your mother is going to get even more suspicious than she already is.”

It was then Harry seemed to come to from his reverie, and he leaned forward, pressing the palms of his hands against the console. “He’s good,” he commented in a low voice, low enough to ensure that Eggsy would not be able to hear him on the other side of the headset.

“Of course he is. I trained him.” Merlin sounded smug,

“Yes, you did.” Harry’s gaze did not leave the screen the entire fight. He was transfixed by Eggsy’s style, watching from his point of view, watching the small camera capture his movements. He had seen the footage from the Valentine incident, but it was nothing compared to watching Eggsy fight by choice, not by force. His hands tightened on the edge of the console, wanting to help, wanting to give the boy pointers, but he knew deep down that his voice would only serve as a negative distraction.

Merlin’s voice warned Eggsy about Dean’s subcompact pistol, as he withdrew it from behind him. It was a classic move, the same one his Rottweiler had done in the fight with Harry. This time, however, Eggsy didn’t even wait for him to start firing it, didn’t even duck down and hide behind the bulletproof umbrella. He lunged forward, risking being shot in the chest of his protective suit, and grappled for Dean’s wrist. Eggsy twisted his arm and shoved the barrel of the gun right against his jaw.

“Ya wouldn’t fucking dare,” Dean spat.

“No, I wouldn’t. It’s your finger on the trigger.” Dean’s hands were shaking, and Eggsy punctuated his statement by shoving the weapon harder against his skin. 

“Eggsy, let him go.” Michelle was pleading with him. He glanced at his mother, taking in her terrified expression. Her eyes were wide with nerves and fear. He looked away, he had to. Even if his mother was going to look down at him for something like this, he had to protect her at all costs. She and his sister were the two most important people in his entire life.

“You are going to let go, and you are going to turn yourself in. Proof of your activities has already been passed on to the relevant authorities, so you can give in and hope for a forgiving sentence, or you can try and outrun the police for the rest of your life.”

Dean dropped the gun into Eggsy’s other hand, before finally being set free. He was red faced and out of breath.

“Leave us the fuck alone,” Eggsy spat, “Or I swear to god, I am going to make your life a living hell like you did to Mum and Days.” He moved, turned to his mother, gave her a sympathetic look in an attempt to soothe her fear as he offered his arm to her.

Michelle took it cautiously, glancing back at the quivering form of her second husband, but there was a hesitation in the way she held onto her son. The boy she knew had always had a tendency for trouble. He had a history of drug use and theft, but this was the first time she had ever seen him hurt someone. This was the first time she had ever seen him so brutally, carelessly attack someone. All those years of living under Dean’s thumb, Eggsy had never once raised a hand against him.

“Baby, what’s happened to you?” She finally asked, as they rounded the corner away from the Black Prince.

“An old friend once told me to protect you. I was just finally living up to the promise.”

Harry was quiet, hearing the words. He remembered that moment, clear as day, kneeling in front of the small boy that would become Guinevere, holding out the medal made in Lee’s honor. The boy was small and innocent and spoke in a shy voice, but Harry had made him promise to keep that medal safe and to keep his mother safe. Eighteen years later he was continuing to live up to that promise. “That boy…” he finally muttered in a low voice, glancing at Merlin, who had been in his ear that fateful night at the Unwin home. “Everything he’s done, he’s done for his mother.”

“Because of a promise he made to _you_ ,” Merlin corrected.

“No. Because he’s that good. So good, he can’t even shoot a fucking dog.” Harry said it as fondly as possible, because as frustrated and disappointed as he had been when Eggsy failed the test so spectacularly, looking back on it now the boy should have passed. A Kingsman only condones the risking of a life to save another, and no one’s life was at risk if the dog weren’t shot. Kingsmen weren’t meant to blindly follow orders, and the test would only prove that much. Harry pushed himself slowly to his feet, lowering his cane for support, and excused himself from Merlin’s presence.

Eggsy’s new home was located in West Hampstead, chosen for its close proximity to central London, as well as its reputation for being fairly quiet, safe, respectable and fashionable - the latter two attributes crucial to a Kingsman. It also had access to several good schools in the area, useful for when his little sister grows up. It was a lovely little three bedroom, semi-detached property that was worth more than Michelle had probably ever seen in her life. Two floors with an entrance hall, reception room, en-suite bathroom and a lovely rear garden. 

The house was almost too extravagant to a fault. Eggsy had actually begged for somewhere simpler. but the home had been reserved for ages. The property, like most Kingsman property, was old, passed on in the near hundred year history: homes of agents past, present and future. Some homes had been reused countless times, other homes still sat in anticipation for the perfect agent to fill its rooms. Harry had told him this particular house had once belonged to a previous Bedivere in the 1930’s, who had joined Kingsman when he already had a small family. This same house had also been intended for Lee, if he had succeeded in becoming Lancelot.

“I don’t know what kind of a tailor job would give you a home like this, no questions asked.”

“It’s a Savile Row tailor, mum. They fucking shit money up there. I bet you this place was just a drop in the bucket!” Eggsy had long since stripped out of his suit, out of his glasses. He was back in his own skin, in a pair of baggy jeans and a polo shirt. It hadn’t taken long to move his mother and Daisy out of the old Dean-infested flat. Eggsy insisted that they didn’t need to bring anything with them, that he would be able to buy them all their necessities. Daisy was attached to the tight, filthy space, but after some fussing and crying, when they got her into the new house, Eggsy finally managed to put his baby sister to sleep in the small lower level bedroom, cooing lovingly at her.

Michelle, on the other hand, looked much less comfortable. She was pacing in the drawing room, hugging herself, arms tight around her middle. “This isn’t about being a tailor, Eggsy. I can tell.”

“Mum… you gotta trust me. I got a job. I got stuff. I can take care of you and Days. I mean, look at this fucking house!”

“At what cost, Eggsy? At what cost! I’m not blind. I’m not stupid. I was right there when you were fucking up Dean, and I was there when that fucking voice made you run away from home.” This was the first time Michelle had yelled at him, had taken the role of ‘mother’ since she had scared him out of the marines. “Your father died for that man!”

Eggsy bit his tongue.

Michelle turned and fixed Eggsy with a long look, the kind of look Eggsy isn’t certain he had ever seen from her, not since his father had died. It was the first time she had ever looked at him the way a frustrated mother looks a son. Her nose and cheeks were red, a sharp contrast to her nervous pallor. “I never knew what he had been up to, and I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but if that man comes back here and tells me that you died a hero, I will kill him myself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This should hopefully be getting more exciting with the upcoming chapters! Hold on tight for Eggsy's first mission as Guinevere!


	5. English Opening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eggsy prepares for his first mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am so sorry that this has taken so long. It'd been written for ages, but the summer kind of got away from me, and my beta. I'm finishing up chapter 8, and chapter 6 is assuredly in the wings for posting! If you've stuck with me from the beginning, you're a trooper and I love you.

The home Eggsy had always wanted for his mother turned out to be nothing like he had envisioned it would be. He imagined something he never had: peace and happiness. He had imagined his mother would be overjoyed, excited to finally be able to have a place to call her own, to be away from that disgusting monster that had been parading around as his stepfather for years. It had become just the opposite. His mother appreciated the gift, she utilized it, she was grateful for the improvement it would make in Daisy’s young life, but every time she looked at him, Eggsy felt a chill run down his spine.

Michelle was looking at him differently now. She saw the damage he was able to do. It was more than just petty crimes and short tempered violence, it was practiced, well trained, more than anything he would have been taught in the marines. She saw the way he attacked Dean. She saw the satisfied smile on his face when he finally kicked Dean’s ass the way he always wanted to, but worst of all, and Eggsy could tell and it was killing him inside; she was looking at him with all the hesitation and all the fear she felt when Harry waltzed into her life and told her that her husband had died. The look of a woman who knows that her son’s life will be shorter than her own.

Whenever he had the opportunity, he avoided from the home that had been so politely provided for him as thanks for his past and future work as a Kingsman. He visited during the day, but rarely ever tried to stay the night. He snuck into the dormitory a few times, much to Merlin’s chagrin.

“You can’t make a habit of this, Eggsy. The dormitories are temporary housing only.” the older man was leaning in the doorway, looking down at the young man laying in the plush bed. The curtains had been drawn, blocking most of the early morning sunlight. He had cottoned on to Eggsy after the first night, and let it slide the next two times, but four times in one week was proving to be a bad habit.

“I know. I just thought it’d be easier for my mum to adjust if I weren’t hanging around.”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t know. I didn’t have a mother to bring home with me.” Merlin wandered into the room, pulling open the curtains. The room filled with bright sunlight, reflecting off last night’s snowfall and making Eggsy flinch and cover his eyes with his arm.

“Fuck me, Merlin. Warn a guy.”

“Absolutely not. You deserved it, but it’s a good thing you’re here. Arthur is on his way. We have a mission for you.”

Eggsy sat up straight in the bed. “Like a mission, or a mission-mission?”

“A proper mission. It’s a simple one by Guinevere standards, but I’ll let Arthur go into detail about that. Be ready in fifteen.”

Harry had arrived earlier by the transport tube, looking as meticulously groomed as always. Hair gently swept back, suit perfectly pressed, leaning carefully on the golden handled cane. Merlin was already waiting for him, a mug of tea in one hand, clipboard in his other. “Good morning, Arthur,” he greeted, passing the mug over and allowing a glance down at the dossier in his hand. The clipboard contained information and paperwork detailing the mission. The tea, well, was to get Harry through his day.

“Good morning, Merlin. Has Guinevere arrived yet?” He sounded apprehensive. 

“He spent the night again, actually.”

“Oh Eggsy…” Harry breathed the name out like a sigh. The boy hadn’t opened up to him about what had happened between him and his mother, but he had opened up to Merlin, and Merlin likewise passed the information onto him. He wished he could be the person that Eggsy could turn in these circumstances, but he didn’t know how he could regain his trust. He certainly didn’t blame him for not trusting him, though. If someone had done the same thing to him, he would have reacted in a similar fashion. Forgiveness, he had learned over the years, was very hard to earn.

“I don’t know how you two are going to get through his mission if he can barely stand to listen to you for more than ten minutes at a time.”

“I’ll be tuned into him through the entire mission, correct?”

Merlin offered Harry a silent expression, eyebrows raised, no words required. They both knew that Guinevere was meant to run missions on Arthur’s behalf, which meant that Harry would be tuned in as long as Eggsy wore his glasses. Harry was the point of contact, not Merlin. This was a distinct difference for Guinevere. This, among other things, set the role apart from the core nine.

Eggsy eventually arrived, several minutes later than Merlin had requested, a habit that he blamed wholly on Harry’s own bad habits. There was a sleep deprived darkness pillowing his eyes. He greeted them both with a tired sounding mutter, as he collapsed in one of the seats surrounding the table. Merlin took his place at the front of the room, and Harry took his seat across from Guinevere. Unlike the dining room above the tailor shop, there were no assigned seats here.

The assigned mission was fairly straight forward. Guinevere was going to run infiltration in a fast growing cult that sprung up in the wake of the Valentine incident. The cult emerged with the claim that those who were killed or died on that day were the chosen ones; that they were smiled upon and welcomed onto the second plane of existence with open arms. Beneath that, it appeared to be a complex money laundering scheme, funnelling money from their eager followers towards a group of unidentified mercenaries. Guinevere was going to get in, get information and get out: who, what, where, when and why.

Merlin slid over a manila colored folder, containing what would become Guinevere’s invented identity for the duration of the mission. He was going to be someone desperately seeking a place of acceptance: a lonely individual with deep pockets and no friends, no family, no purpose.

“The ideal cult candidate,” Harry added. “You will also need to be in disguise. Unrecognizable, to protect your identity.”

“Which brings us to Tristan and Isolde.”

The meeting felt as though it went on for hours, with Harry detailing the projected schedule for the mission, the amount of time he would spend in each location, how long he would have to be undercover. It was thoroughly planned, with every bit of information they had previous gathered taken into consideration. He seemed rather apologetic about forcing Eggsy into an undercover mission like this one, because it felt rather mundane in comparison to what he knew the boy was capable of. 

Worst of all, their relationship was still strained, at best. Eggsy didn’t hate him, he couldn’t hate him, but that didn’t make him any less upset everytime he looked at him. There was a small amount of improvement though, he swore at Harry less, and he put up with listening to him talk about work. He longed for things to be the way they were. He wanted that easy-going relationship from their first twenty-four hours together: Harry teasing him, him teasing Harry. Instead he was granted the privilege to watch the older man walk slowly through the Manor, supporting himself with that cane as a reminder of his almost death. A death that everyone had been happy to let Eggsy think had been final. He didn’t like to admit it, but he liked combat training with Harry, because it meant touching him, and it meant knowing that he was real.

Harry came to a stop, and Eggsy dropped the hand he hadn’t realized he had been stretching out towards the older man. “They’re through here. I won’t follow. It’s not necessary for me to accompany you.”

Eggsy looked towards the door, then back at Harry, and he managed a half-hearted, “Thanks,” before pushing past and into the room. There he was greeted by the pair of code named agents who specialized in covert undercover missions: the tall slim gentleman named Isolde, and the petite Tristan. Eggsy had met them once before, at his ceremony, but they had been green, holographic images displayed on his frames. This, however, was the first time meeting them face to face. 

“Guinevere! It’s lovely to see you again!” The woman approached with a friendly sort of air, offering a hand for him to shake. In person, she wasn’t nearly as petite as Eggsy thought she had been. She had thick brown hair and green eyes and a face with features that alone wouldn’t have been considered attractive but together created something breathtakingly beautiful. 

“Yeah, it’s great to finally meet you in person.”

The woman, Tristan, laughed and shook her head. “Don’t be daft. we’ve met in person once before, too. Don’t you recognize me?”

Eggsy took a moment. He scrutinized her. Her eyes glittered with laughter, obviously taking a great deal of enjoyment out of his struggle. “I woulda remembered someone as beautiful as you,” he said slowly, brow furrowing.

“Oh, I know you can do it. People tell me I look very good as a blonde.”

The gears slowly wheeled into place and then it clicked. It was as though a literal lightbulb went off in his head and Eggsy balked, his jaw dropping. “W-wait! You were that bird we had to win over!” Tristan was unrecognizable as the Lady Sophie Montague-Herring. There was some similarity in the face shape, but that girl must have barely been in her twenties, and the woman standing before him now was at least in her forties.

“For your information, I was not wearing colour contacts that day.”

“Holy shit! I knew that whole fucking thing was a set up!” Eggsy had lost all semblance of the dignified gentleman he had to pretend to be as Guinevere. “That is mental!”

Tristan, formerly known as Lady Sophie, was laughing. Once the pieces had clicked into place, it was impossible for Eggsy to not place that smile as the one belonging to their mark. She held out an arm for him, allowing him to take it, hooking elbows. “Come along, Guinevere. We have plans for you. You won’t even recognize yourself when we’re done.”

It was a flurry of costume changes and hair styles; how to change his voice and carry himself differently. The concept was creating and becoming a whole new person, not just playing along and playing pretend. There weren’t very many agents who were suited for that kind of job -- many of them did their share of undercover work, but none of them performed with the same quality and expertise as Tristan and Isolde. They were so effective at their job, that rumor had it members of Kingsman had no idea where one generation ended and the other began.

“Arthur,” Isolde commented, as he slid his elegant fingers across Eggsy’s shoulders before adjusting the oversized, badly fit knit they had chosen for him, “is absolutely abysmal at disguise work. It’s a damn good thing he won’t be running these kinds of missions anymore.”

“It’s really why we voted for him,” Tristan added with a laugh.

“Not because you think he’d be a good leader?”

“He’s not patient enough.” “He’s too high strung.” The pair’s voices overlapped each other. “But he thinks outside the box.” “But he finds the good in people.”

This was probably the first time, outside of Merlin, that Eggsy had gotten the opportunity to hear another agent’s opinion of Harry. The reviews weren’t stellar, but they were respectable. Obviously Tristan and Isolde had thought highly enough of the man to vote him into the position of their boss. They compared Harry to Chester King. They reflected on the much older man’s outdated point of view, but still held the older man in high regard. He had betrayed the organization in the end, but he had still been an effective leader. Harry still needed to prove himself, but he was young, and he was doing his best to pull Kingsman back together after the Valentine incident.

This was also the first time Eggsy had heard of Harry doing more work than just pestering him as Arthur to Guinevere. He wondered when the man had time to sleep. It certainly explained the dark circles under his eyes and the gauntness to his cheeks He was thinner now than he had been when he left in a frustrated, disappointed huff. Thinner than he had been when he died.

“But it wouldn’t do for us to have any other Arthur.” Isolde was much more soft spoken than his counterpart. “He’s a good man, and he wants change. Tristan might make jokes, but our decisions are made with much deliberation. Kingsman needs to evolve with the times, and Arthur is the man to do it. He brought you to us, after all. We’ve seen the footage. You’re incredible.”

“Me…” Eggsy said the singular syllable slowly. It weighed heavily on him. He had been out of place since the beginning. He, like his father before him, had been an attempt to breathe new life into the organization. Harry was the only one willing to do it. Even Merlin had approached with apprehension.

Harry, who had so much faith in him, chose him for the role of Guinevere.

“There. I think you’re perfect.” Tristan ran her fingers through Eggsy’s hair, moving it just slightly before taking a step back to admire her work. “Let’s show Arthur.”

The pair lead Eggsy down the hallways, down toward a room that he had not yet had the chance to see in person. They rapped their knuckles against the old hardwood door, a secret knock Eggsy assumed, before Isolde moved to open the door. There was a fireplace and a plush armchair and a table of papers. Harry was seated, handful of papers in one hand, looking expectantly at the door, and though he knew it was the Kingsman undercover specialists beyond the wood, he was still surprised by what greeted him there. “Shit.”

The pair had done their job. Eggsy was unrecognizable. He had been dressed in an oversized knit sweater, rendered in an unattractive argyle. Beneath that was a rumpled dress shirt, sleeves too long, collar out of place, in a color that should not have been combined with the knit. His hair had been dyed a dark brown-black, making his skin look even more pale than it had been, and whatever techniques had been employed made it look as though his hair were longer than it was. A pair of round, unattractive glasses finished the look, outfitted to function exactly the same as standard Kingsman frames, but without the style.

Every article of clothing, every accessory had been specially chosen to demonstrate a waste of wealth, an ability to purchase designer clothing, but with no idea how to style it, how to wear it. Standing between Tristan and Isolde was an unattractive, unremarkable, lonely young man with deep pockets named Fredrick Harris. 

Eggsy felt self conscious. It was the first time since his ceremony that he was aware of Harry’s eyes on him. It made his toes curl nervously in the ill fitting brogued oxfords on his feet. The gaze felt warm and intense and almost stressful. A part of him wanted Harry to keep looking at him like this. He shifted from one foot to the other. “Well? If it looks like shit, that’s the point.”

Harry moved to his feet, grabbing for his cane. He stood there a moment, afraid to take those steps towards him. All of his attention was on Eggsy, for Eggsy. He forgot that there were others in the room there with him. Rendered like this, Eggsy didn’t resemble himself, nor was he particularly attractive, but he was Eggsy, ready and waiting and patient for his gaze. “It’s certainly a look,” he finally responded.

Tristan and Isolde both took this moment to excuse themselves, claiming that they have to finish packing together the wardrobe Eggsy would have at his disposal during the duration of the mission - clothes that, while they looked badly made, were designed just like any other Kingsman wear. There were spots of bullet proofing, a watch with the same dart technology, and of course, the glasses.

“Yeah, I feel like the opposite of pampered.” Eggsy slid his hands down across his front, smoothing out the oversized knit.

“You look repulsive. It’s perfect.”

It was the closest thing the two men had to a conversation since Harry left that fateful day and “died”. It was stilted and stiff and uncomfortable, but they were talking. Both men were approaching the mission with the full knowledge that they were going to have to communicate, that this was a team effort, that Merlin wasn’t going to be Guinevere’s contact back at home, that Arthur’s voice was going to be the guiding force. Both men were going to have to put aside their pride for the good of Kingsman.

It would be another two days before Eggsy would be dropped off to begin his mission. He had taken the advice from nearly everyone, including Roxy, that he should at least inform his mother that he would be away for an undetermined amount of time. The first time it had been easy, he escaped with the excuse that her husband - his stepfather - had tried to kill him. This time, however, it was awkward enough that he was trying not to sleep in his new home, but at least she at least saw him once a day. He had to reassure her that he was alive somehow.

A mission, however, would be something else entirely.

Eggsy ducked into the house late at night, after he knew Daisy would have been put to sleep. He didn’t quite have a grasp on his mother’s habits. In the past, she kept irresponsibly late nights when she was with Dean, but these past few weeks demonstrated a certain sense of inconsistency. Some nights she was up until dawn, other nights she slept when her daughter slept. Tonight, Eggsy hoped, was one of the nights she would be awake so they could talk.

She wasn’t. Michelle was fast asleep on the large plush bed, pillowing Daisy. So Eggsy left a note instead.

It didn’t detail anything, despite the fact that Merlin had given him the permission that she was allowed to know _some_ things about the organization. Instead he wrote, “Going away for a while. Sorry. Luv ya. Eggs.” He left his phone on the table, like a paperweight, a sign that his mother wouldn’t be able to communicate with him in his time away.

Merlin had predicted that the whole mission shouldn’t take more than a couple weeks, at most a month. That was nothing compared to the time Eggsy had been away from home during his initial job interview. He hoped she wouldn’t miss him, and Harry promised that they would be taken care of.

Eggsy emerged from the home, stepping into the darkness. It was snowing, and he hugged his arms around himself. The street was quiet, dimly lit by the street lamps and the lights flickering from the windows of the neighboring houses. It was a beautiful neighborhood, and he almost wished he could have spent the Christmas holiday here, could have brought his mother here, but this was an appropriate way to begin the new year. A new home, a new life, a new job….

A car rolled up to Eggsy, standing there on the sidewalk, a familiar black London style cab. He took a step back as the tinted window rolled down to reveal Harry, wearing his glasses, wearing his suit, looking professional from head to toe. He gestured with his head, with a look that reminded Eggsy of that first time he stepped into the tailor shop. It was the same look that had made Eggsy weak in the knees, awakening an attraction to older men he never knew he had. 

“Come on in. Can’t have you walking back to the manor at this hour of night. You can stay with me tonight.”

Glancing up and down the road, Eggsy used the time it bought him to hesitate. Eventually he looked back at Harry and muttered a word of gratitude, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. He wandered around to the other side of the carriage, climbing into the soft leather interior. “Thanks,” he repeated once the door was shut and the cab started down the road.

“How much does your mother know?”

“Enough. Enough to know that you’re the root of all her problems.”

“I ought to tell her I’m sorry.”

Eggsy shifted in the seat, turning his body towards Harry’s. “Nah. You really oughtn’t. She’ll think you’re there to tell her I died, and then she said she’d kill you.”

Harry glanced at Eggsy out of the corner of his eye, his lips quirking into a small, barely there smile. This was probably the closest thing to positive body language from the young man since the ceremony, since revealing that he wasn’t actually dead. It felt a little like a glimmer of hope. “Shit. I was never very good at subtlety.”

“Yeah, you fucking suck at it, Harry. Minus the whole, staying dead for four months and keeping it from me bullshit.” Eggsy raised a hand to stop the older man from trying to explain himself for what felt like the millionth time. He had heard it before, he had heard it from Merlin and he had even heard it from Roxy. “I know. I _know_ , fuck.”

“You know that I’m very sorry, Eggsy.”

“I know. But it don’t change the fact that it sucks.” The younger lad shifted in his seat, collapsing back against it, facing forward, arms crossed belligerently over his chest. 

A silence fell between them as the taxi trundled on towards its destination. It was an uncomfortable, heavy silence that hung in the air. Eggsy would have preferred the taxi pumping some terrible music at him as they drove along the dimly lit streets, instead of the sound of nothingness. He watched Harry out of the corner of his eye, careful not to make eye contact. Even in the dark car, there was no denying that the older man was just as handsome now as he had been when they first crossed paths at the precinct. Eggsy wondered what Harry must have looked like in his youth, 

The black cab pulled down the familiar street, up to Harry’s familiar home. Eggsy had only been here once since becoming Guinevere: during the twenty-four hours he had been forced to spend with Arthur. It wasn’t the ideal place to spend the night before a mission, but it was late and it would be another forty minutes or so before he could make it back to Headquarters. 

“You can sleep in the bed,” Harry offered, as he walked slowly towards one of the plush seats in his drawing room.

Eggsy protested, shaking his head. There was no way he was going to take a bed away from a someone older than him, and even worse, someone crippled, but Harry would have none of it.

“It’s too hard to climb all those stairs these days. I am much more comfortable remaining here.” It was a decent enough argument. Eggsy had a hard time fighting it. He took off reluctantly up the stairway towards Harry’s bedroom - Harry’s bedroom which he had only seen once before when he spent the night after the older man had taken off for Kentucky.

The bedclothes were different, a deep blue color and made of the softest, highest thread count cotton sheets available. Eggsy collapsed on them, still in his street clothes: baggy jeans, oversized hoodie. He was tired. It was catching up to him. The weight of everything that had happened in the past couple weeks sat on his shoulders, holding him heavy against the mattress. For a moment he felt as though he couldn’t breathe, but the the combination of musk and soap drifting from the sheets comforted him. It was impossible for him to not recognize it: the smell of Harry, warm, familiar and alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Eggsy embarks on his first mission as Guinevere! It's much more exciting than this chapter, I promise.


	6. Decoy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Frederick Harris joins a cult.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10,000 hits! 700 Kudos! Thanks so much for reading! I love you guys. I wish I could respond to your comments, but I get easily distracted ;3; Here's chapter 6, and this is when Eggsy goes on his first mission was Guinevere. I hope you guys enjoy it.

Frederick Harris was deposited in North Yorkshire early one morning, with a suitcase in one hand and a flyer in the other. The single page of paper read:

**Suffering from feelings of loneliness and depression?  
**  
We understand you.  
You are invited into our warm embrace  
Be surrounded by loved ones.  
Find Peace  


Beneath that detailed a date, a time and a location. It was ambiguous, designed to leave people wanting, leave people curious, especially those most susceptible to the temptation of finding a place to belong. Despite the world chugging along in an illusion of normalcy, a chunk of the world’s population had died and an even larger chunk had gotten injured or emotionally scarred as a result. There were so many - too many - people out there desperate for an escape. Frederick Harris was one of those people.

There was a small flat that had been rented in his name. He was a transplant from Wales looking for a fresh new start. He had no friends, and his family had all but given up on him. In a word, he was pathetic. The school kids had been telling him that for years. The flyer he had found tacked up on the signboard at the local coffee shop was exactly what he needed.

It was like a breath of fresh air. It was hope.

A small crowd of people had gathered at the old church. The flyer had managed to attract a variety of desperate individuals: young, old, new to the city, long time locals, well to do, and struggling to make ends meet. At the head, where the altar table once stood when the building was still used as a place of worship, was a heavy set man with a warm smile and a festive holiday jumper. He was designed to be approachable, friendly, welcoming. 

It worked.

The crowd was hooked, They were mesmerised. They wanted what the man was selling. Frederick was just as sold. He was on the edge of his seat the entire time. He wanted this bonding. He wanted the reassurance and familiarity that came with a family that understood him. He wanted to be caught up in the warm embrace the man before him was offering.

It was neuro-linguistic programming at it’s finest. 

The friendly man’s sales pitch included that there was a warm loving home for everyone who needed it, so long as they could prove they wanted it enough. He advertised it as a perfect, calm, secluded community away from the hustle and bustle of stressful life. Therapy, consultation, support, love and friendship were part of the package deal.

Frederick was intrigued. He handed over his personal information: his name, his date of birth, his address, his phone number. He gave it all, and the friendly man took his hand and gave it a warm, strong shake.

“We are going to take such good care of you.”

A letter arrived in Frederick’s mailbox a couple days later. It was an brochure in the form of an invitation. He approached with apprehension. He had a brand new apartment. He couldn’t just up and leave it behind. It required a huge deposit. He played hard to get. He made them wait for a response.

A phone call came a couple days later. It was a woman. She spoke in a soft, sweet, friendly tone. She sounded young, approachable: like a peer. She reassured him that it would be worth the money and the time away from home. Consider it a holiday, she said. A vacation from the stress of everyday life. 

Frederick hesitated. He expressed nervousness.

“Do you hear voices?”

“Wh-what?”

“Do you hear voices in your head? Do they tell you what to do?”

“I… I do. They do. What do I do?”

The woman offered her sympathies, explained that in severe cases such as Mr Harris’s, they would be able to offer him a steep discount. They wanted him to feel better, to find peace. They knew exactly what he needed, but he had to come and see it for himself. It wasn’t something they gave away over the phone. Frederick reluctantly agreed. He wanted relief. He gave her his account information.

The woman thanked him. “I was like you once. You won’t regret it.” She gave him transport information over the phone, where and when to pick up his rail ticket. There would be others travelling with him. There was no ‘alone’ in this venture.

Frederick packed up his only suitcase. He made his way to the station, where he met others like him. Some he recognized from the meeting in the old church, some unfamiliar. There was another friendly face there with the same warm, approachable attitude as the others. He was there to ensure that they did not get lost en route to the compound. He was there to hold their hand. He was there to be a support, a beacon of encouragement.

The community was located in the peaceful English countryside. It had all the appearances of having cropped up in the middle of a small, barely populated town that had likely suffered a huge loss during the Valentine incident. Frederick and the others were greeted by a handful of friendly members, all dressed alike in matching shirts and trousers. They were corralled off by gender, the women taking the women, the men taking the men.

They were reassured that this was a loving place, this was a safe place. There was no discrimination in this community, which meant of course that each person needed to be evaluated for their own personal prejudices.

“We just want to correct bad behavior before it infects the rest of the community.”

Frederick was locked into a small dark room, separated from the others. He was sitting, hands tight on his knees. There was a single lamp that stood in the corner, barely illuminating the table. He felt as though he were about to be interrogated.

That turned out to be exactly the case.

The man that entered was not as easygoing as the others had been. He was professional, and he drilled Frederick with questions about his life, his family, his finances, his lifestyle, his habits. He delved deeper, asked questions about depression, about mood swings, about the voices he hears in his head.

“We can do something about this,” the man eventually said, cracking a smile. “You’ll be admitted into a light rehabilitation program before being allowed into the general community, but it’s all for your benefit. We will set you on the correct path.”

Then came the kicker: “It will cost a little extra, but it will be worth your while, we promise.” 

Frederick, lonely and desperate, handed over the money with cautious optimism.

Couples and families were separated into dormitory style bedrooms: men in one, women in another, children in another. Their belongings had been taken from them, which made Frederick panic, because he needed the items in that bag, and all he was left with were the clothes on his back, the watch on his wrist, and the glasses on his face..

Frederick wandered the room, experimentally walking the space of the dormitory, taking in the surroundings, the people around them. There were seven other men in the room with him, a diverse assortment of human beings from various walks of life. It should have been a red flag that nearly everyone he had travelled with was joining him in the rehabilitation program, but they were already one step towards being brainwashed by the warmth and encouragement that came from the people pulling the strings above their heads.

“Be careful Guinevere. There are eyes and ears everywhere,” Harry’s baritone voice, soft and barely there floated into Eggsy’s ear. He had been talking to him the whole time, with Merlin’s occasional interjection. Sometimes it was serious advice, sometimes it was playful banter between the two and other times it was Harry’s cautious words of encouragement. Eggsy had learned early on to keep his mouth shut as the Welsh lad, Frederick. “They have the whole building bugged.”

Through the glasses, Eggsy could see the points of interest, a camera in the corner hidden amongst the brick; a couple bugs on the wall; another camera on the other side of the room. They wanted to know everything their new sheep were up to. He was going to have to be much more careful.

Frederick sat himself nervously on the edge of his bed. Next to him was another boy around his age, twenty, twenty-one: a little doughy, a little small in stature, with round glasses. He had a friendly, though slightly hesitant smile.

“Hey,” the boy said, reaching a hand out to him. “I’m Tommy. I guess we’re gonna be roomies for a while.”

Frederick eyed the hand cautiously before reaching for it, shaking it slowly. He could hear Harry’s cautious voice, telling him to be careful. Eggsy almost wanted to bark back that he wasn’t stupid. Of course he knew to be careful. “I’m Freddie-- Fred. Fred.”

“Nice to meet you Freddie-Fred-Fred,” Tommy said with a forced grin. His grip was firm, a little clammy. He was obviously nervous. “This is some pretty cool stuff, huh?”

“It’s… it’s stuff. It’s weird. They took all my stuff.”

A small wave of relief seemed to wash over the boy, as if he had found some sort of kindred spirit, someone else who wasn’t completely sold on the center. He sat himself down beside Frederick with a sigh. “These guys have been hounding me for months. I don’t know how, but they found out about the fiance I lost during V-day. They haven’t left me alone since. I don’t… I don’t trust them.”

“That’s society putting doubt in your mind.”

Both boys looked up then. A smiling man was standing before them. Frederick swore he hadn’t been in the room moments earlier, but there he was, with the same warm, welcoming smile that nearly every other person in this place wore. He had a badge with a name: Brother Edward. “But we’ll do everything we can to remove that doubt. We want you to be comfortable and we want you to be happy.”

The smiling man reached out and dropped hands on the tops of both their heads. It was a firm touch, a practiced one made to emulate the feeling of being blessed. “I know that you will both find peace. Tomorrow will be a new day.”

The men in the dormitory were woken up at the crack of dawn the next day, and corralled hungry and sleepy into a small room. Frederick had barely managed to remember to grab his glasses as they were gathered in front of a large screen. There was no introduction, just a flickering light, followed by a series of images and then a serene voice talking about the Second Plane of existence: a place of peace, of harmony, where people exist without the burdens of their physical bodies.

“Good lord.” Eggsy could practically hear the eye roll in Harry’s tired voice. “That is pathetic. I cannot believe we are being forced to watch this right now.”

Eggsy wanted to respond, to make a quip about the fact that Harry wasn’t the one being forced, but he couldn’t. Not without giving the game away. He was slightly amused, however. It lightened the situation.

“You have to stay focused. You’ve been doing such a good job so far, but they are going to do everything they can to force themselves on you. You cannot let them get to you. I will talk to you, through all of it. To distract you.” It was the most Harry had ever said at once to him through the entire mission so far.

Somehow, with Harry’s encouragement, Eggsy made it through the video without walking out, enduring it for the good of the mission. He endured the next several days of his rehabilitation: sparse, low calorie protein-less meals, rhythmic chanting, group therapy, It was mindless, designed to slowly break their spirits.

Harry’s and sometimes Merlin’s voice in his ear kept him grounded, kept him in the moment. Even after all the attitude he had given the older man, Harry’s soft baritone voice was a welcome relief every time it floated to his ear. Sometimes the words felt like nonsense, comments about the sky, about the weather in London. Sometimes it was just listening to the two men talking back and forth.

There was an easygoing camaraderie between the two men that Eggsy had only just begun to experience. Having both their voices in his ear allowed him the rare privilege to hear for himself their playful, friendly banter. It was the kind of language that only came with the comfort of a long, close relationship. There was a pang of jealousy there, but he wasn’t sure to whom it was directed.

Between sessions, in those brief windows of time as they were corralled from one building to another, Eggsy kept his eyes open. He watched for suspicious activity, but everything looked suspicious in this town. He had, however, noted a point of interest. The Brothers and Sisters who acted as the moderators and team leaders retired to various places in the town, in the small homes that had been adapted into communal housing, but they always seemed to check into one place: the church.

Meanwhile, Frederick made friends with the young man named Tommy. He endured his whispers of apprehension, his distrust in the people herding them around the community. As the days wore on, Frederick couldn’t help but notice as he became more and more high strung, more and more unhinged. They were getting to him, breaking him by way of his paranoia. 

They were starting to get to Frederick too. “I think they’re getting inside my head,” He whispered to the only friend he had made in these past several days. He whispered it across the beds, in the darkness, but as much as it was intended for Tommy, it was also meant for the man on the other side, a plea for help.

“I wanna get outta here, Freddie…”

Assisted by the night vision in his glasses, Eggsy watched the man in the other bed roll over onto his side, facing away from him. Despite his better judgement, he had gotten attached. Tommy made everything feel a little more real, a little more personal. 

“Guinevere.”

Eggsy tilted his head back, listening to Harry’s voice. It brought him back to the moment, reminding him that he had a job to do, that he couldn’t let those people get inside his head. 

“You’re doing an incredible job. It’s hard, I understand.”

Eggsy wanted to argue that he doubts Harry ever had to endure brainwashing for a mission, but he remembered the church. It was impossible not to. Harry had been more than brainwashed that day. He bit his tongue, even though he never would have been able to respond.

“I’m watching out for you, and I trust that you are far too stubborn to be so easily swayed.”

The words almost made Eggsy laugh .. _Thanks, Harry,_ he wanted to say.

“The sooner you can finish this, the better. We’ve been trying to arrange a drop off, but the area is too secure. Can you do it without your suit?”

Eggsy should have known. He had been planning for this. They left him his watch, and they left him his glasses. The clothes on his back had long since been confiscated and replaced with the same sort of matching uniforms as the rest of the men here. He nodded.

“Good. Now, try to get some sleep. You’ll need it.”

Harry’s voice was the last thing Eggsy heard when he fell asleep, and it was the first thing he heard when he was awoken only a few hours later. It was a difficult habit to explain, that he needed to sleep with his glasses on. His excuse had been that he has a fear of waking up blind ( _they_ said they were going to work on that). Harry was calling out Eggsy’s code name, trying to wake him up, and blearily the young man muttered, “Arthur?” He had forgotten where he was.

“That friend of yours. He’s being taken away.”

_Almost_ forgotten where he was.

“Don’t get up. They’ll notice you.”

Eggsy opened his eyes cautiously. He could see them through the night vision of his glasses, a duo of men frog marching the familiar shape of Frederick’s friend, Tommy. He wasn’t struggling, he was mostly still as they carried him out of the room. They moved with expert silence. Eggsy needed to follow him, to save him, to know what they wanted with him.

“I know what you’re thinking. You have to be careful. You’re barely armed, and they have their eye on you.”

The door shut behind the men, and Eggsy moved. He slipped out from under the covers. He was in nothing but the pajamas they provided everyone in the program. His bare feet hit the cold hardwood floors, making his toes curl. He ducked out into the hallway, pretending to need the bathroom.

“If only we had put a tracker on that young man.”

“I did.” It was the first time Eggsy had spoken to Harry since travelling to that community.

“Guinevere.” Harry was obviously scolding him.

“Oh, fuck it Arthur. I’m trying to infiltrate this goddamn place place in my pyjamas. They were gonna figure me out one way or another. May as well be on my terms.” Eggsy rounded a corner, before hurrying down the stairs from their dormitory. 

“And where did you get a tracker?”

“I took the tracker out of my own glasses and planted them on his. I didn’t know how long they’d keep us like sheep, and I wanted to know if he ended up somewhere else.”

“You’re a genius.”

“Nah, just resourceful. So are you gonna check for him, or are you just going to sit there sounding pretty?” It was probably the most playful Eggsy had been towards Harry in a long time. 

There was a moment silence that followed, and Eggsy could just imagine the barely there look of amusement on the older man’s face, eyebrows just slightly raised in surprise. It would have been a look so similar to the one Harry had given him when the only movie that came to mind was _My Fair Lady_. Finally the older man spoke: “He’s headed towards the church.”

“Fuck. I shoulda known.” Eggsy slipped out as silently as possible from the home. The ground beneath Eggsy’s feet were cold with midnight frost. He shuddered. “I probably shoulda found some shoes,” he muttered into the gloom. “And a jacket.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“Nah, I’m okay.” Eggsy crept along in the darkness, helped by the moonlight up above. It was clear skies, just barely above freezing temperature. His skin prickled with goosebumps. The center was dark and quiet. There was a strict curfew in place, lights out before 11pm. He hurried along, staying in the shadows, trying to stay undetected. He was grateful that Frederick’s hair was dark brown instead of his usual dirty blonde. 

The church loomed large up ahead. It was a massive structure in the middle of the town. It was old and likely the town centerpiece for centuries. Nowhere near as extravagant as Westminster Abbey, but certainly an impressive piece of architecture. There were a few lights flickering from the windows. A door opened, and Eggsy threw himself into the bushes. 

“Shit.” Harry’s voice soft spoken. “Be careful. If you ever feel like you’re in danger, get out of there.”

“I got this, Arthur.” Eggsy was trying to sound confident, but he felt naked, exposed to the elements. He had no means to defend himself. All he had was Harry’s voice in his ear, the glasses on his face, and the watch on his wrist. He watched a handful of people leave the church, dressed in the same uniforms as the rest of the Brothers and Sisters. He couldn’t recognize them, not in this darkness.,

“Your friend should be inside.”

Eggsy emerged from the bushes, his eyes trained on the others, watching them carefully. The door behind them was old and slow to shut. He needed to slip in before it locked them out. “You’re getting all this, yeah? ‘Case we need to come back.”

“I’m recording it all as we speak.”

Bare feet on cold ground, Eggsy took off towards the church. He pressed his back against the cold stone as he slipped through the shadows, He narrowly managed to slide into the church, the door shutting quietly behind him with a dull thud. He breathed out a sigh of relief.

The nave of the church was exactly what it should have been. Gothic with vaulted ceilings. Muted stained glass and a long aisle with pews on either side, leading to an altar. It lacked all the regular earmarks of an church in active use: no crosses, no running carpet, no prayer books or bibles. It should have looked abandoned, but it was clean and there were lights hanging above, flickering slightly. “Where do I go?”

“Your friend looks as though he’s off towards the chapter house.” Harry gave him the directions, leading through the cloister and past the garth.

Halfway there, Eggsy heard footsteps, coming from a distance, echoing through the empty church. He tried to listen, tried to hear where the footsteps were coming from. He couldn’t head back toward the garth, they were coming that way. The chapter house was just ahead, but he didn’t know what lay behind that door. Over his headset, he heard Harry tell him the old monastery was through the door on his right, ahead still was the dean’s residence. Eggsy chose the monastery door, pressing back against it, flanked on either side by a pillar, hiding him from view. It felt too much like that moment in Valentine’s bunker where he swore there was no escape.

There were more. Three, four, maybe five pairs of boots hurrying across the floor, they grew closer and louder. Eggsy considered his options. He could hope they have no weapons and he could simply kick all their asses and leave a bloody pile on the floor. That was the best case scenario. Worst case scenario he dies. A happy medium was serious injury, but managing an escape with the precious cargo of information regarding this carefully cult.

The footsteps drew closer still. Eggsy didn’t dare peek his head around the pillar, despite his sick curiosity. His glasses were telling him the figures were approaching, but it wasn’t quite as satisfying as seeing it for himself. He wanted to know how far they were, but he didn’t want to know that badly. 

“Guinevere.” Harry’s voice boomed in Eggsy’s ear. He thought to himself that there could have been worst things to hear as his fate ticked ever closer with every step.

They were right there. He could hear them, and then they came into view. Four men in a diverse collection of physical traits: petite, tall, slim, thick, and they were jogging along in matching slate gray jumpsuits. Their gaze was fixed pointedly forward, and they kept right on going, as if they didn’t see an intruder just beside them.

_This_ was the best case scenario, so much so that Eggsy hadn’t even imagined it could have happened. The four marched along without a clue that he was hiding there.

“Guinevere,” Harry repeated..

Eggsy waited until he could no longer hear their steps and he was alone in the silence of the church again before responding. “Arthur.”

“You’re okay.” It wasn’t quite a question; it wasn’t quite a statement.

“I’m okay.” Eggsy’s inflection was almost identical to Harry’s.

“Your friend is up ahead.”

Pushing himself free from the wall Eggsy continued to move along the stone floor. He wasn’t shivering from the cold anymore, his body pumping with adrenaline. Harry was leading him through the church, telling him to turn left, to turn right. He skimmed past the chapter house.

“Wait. Stop.”

Eggsy obeyed.

“You’re right on top of him.”

There was a beat. Eggsy looked around the space, trying to figure out what Harry meant. There was no one there in front of him. There was no one around him. The tracker was incredibly accurate, there should have been no mistake. He looked down.

“Unless there’s an underground--”

“No.” Eggsy stopped him. He reached down, fingers closing around the familiar pair of round spectacles Frederick’s friend Tommy always wore, always kept tucked away in his pocket even while he slept. At the time he said they were a gift his fiance had given him. That he kept them close at hand, close to his heart because he missed the man. It was part of why Frederick was so fond of him. They had something in common, but unlike Tommy, the person that died in Eggsy’s life had waltzed right back into it. “I found him.”

Harry was silent on the other end. It was a thoughtful silence at least.

“Fuck. Fuck!”

“Guinevere.” Harry’s voice was low. It wasn’t scolding. It offering cautious sympathy in a single word. 

Eggsy took a deep breath. He was fuming. He wanted to kick their asses. He wanted to find the root of the problem, take them down and make them pay. He tucked the glasses into the collar of his sleep shirt. “Let’s see what I can get outta this fucking place.”

His glasses had been detecting digital activity up ahead, towards the direction of what had been the dean’s residence of the church. Up until now he had been ignoring that in favor of Harry’s directions, tracking down Frederick’s friend. He followed along, hurrying again through the cold stone halls of the old church. There were no other footsteps, but he was cautious the whole way. He kept his ears open, and he looked around every corner. There were too many dark shadowy corners for people to hide in.

The dean’s residence looked like a fairly new addition to the church, with a fairly neoclassical architecture, a sharp contrast to the old church’s gothic archways. though much more subdued in appearance. It had been originally intended as fairly modest home for the parish leader, though that was centuries ago now. Eggsy slipped around, trying to spy a decent entrance. His glasses were telling him there was a distinct digital signature inside, tell tale signs of a complicated computer system. The glasses were also indicating that were were no people inside, and when he found a window towards the back, he shoved his elbow through it, shattering the glass. Eggsy ignored the pain, as he crawled inside, feet treading carefully on broken glass.

Three rooms later, Eggsy finally found it. He pushed through into a slightly more modern looking space. It hummed with the presence of electronics. His target was sitting on the desk, a large computer monitor and a keyboard. He hadn’t grown up with computers the way most of his peers had, but Merlin had shown him more than a thing or two about hacking and he was a quick study.

A tiny flash drive had been hidden on the inside arm of his glasses, not anywhere near as fancy as the one he had used back in Valentine’s bunker, but certainly more compact, after all it wasn’t made for streaming to an outside terminal like the other had been. 

It took some work, but Eggsy finally managed to access account and finance information. They had managed to scam hundreds of thousands of dollars from unsuspecting, desperate people and nearly all that money was being funneled out of the country, deposited into hundreds of separate accounts. He found a stash of encrypted emails and exchanges that Merlin would have to get through. He found some information on an organization named, rather plainly, “Soldiers”. He saved it all, copying the information over onto the drive.

Then he stumbled on something that made his breath catch in his throat. He had accessed it through several layers of protection, each layer more difficult to hack through than the last, but then it blossomed onto the screen. File after file of personnel files with portraits detailing names, dates of birth, addresses, genders, blood type and more. 

“Arthur. Are you seeing this?” Eggsy barely managed to croak out the words.

“Kingsman personnel files.”

“How the fuck did they get their hands on personnel files? Shit. Kay’s here. Bedivere’s here…” There were eleven files, each one detailing every knight of the round table, every one of the nine agents that Eggsy was not among. There were two separate listings for Lancelot: James Montgomery (DECEASED), which was incredibly detailed, and Roxanne Morton, which was comfortingly empty. There was even one for Arthur, listed as Chester King.

“Guinevere, I need you to obtain it, erase it, and get the fuck out of there.” Harry somehow managed to sound calm and even toned despite the revelation in front of them.

Eggsy was already a step ahead of him, copying over every file, deleting them as he went. The last file he glanced at, with a handsome young face staring back at him from the monitor, was Galahad’s: Harry Hart (DECEASED).

The flash drive had just barely come free from the computer before Eggsy felt it against his back, cold and hard and shoved against his left flank. He straightened himself up slowly, hands raising towards his head at the same time. There was a breath against his ear.

“Do what I say and I won’t kill you,” the man with the gun at his back said in a low, husky voice. “Hands behind your head. I got the intruder here. Send backup.” He was talking into his other sleeve now.

Eggsy breathed slowly and obeyed. He discreetly tucked the flash drive back into his glasses as he moved. “I got lost,” he lied.

“Bullshit. Who are you.” The man was grabbing shoving the gun harder against Eggsy’s back.

“I told you,” Eggsy responded slowly, “I got lost. I couldn’t sleep. I went for a walk…” And as he spoke, he slid a foot carefully back, tracing his toe silently across the polished wood floor, before sweeping the feet of the man from underneath him. The gun went off, and Eggsy barely managed to dodge it, before his foot came down, stepping hard on the man’s wrist, digging it into the floor. “And I got lost.”

The man kicked his own legs up, knocking the air out of Eggsy, knocking him back several steps, freeing him from his spot pinned against the floor. The man scrambled to his feet. He was bigger. He was bulky. He wasn’t as nimble. He fired his gun with little finesse, barely able to aim even in the small space of the room. Eggsy took advantage of his smaller stature, his flexibility. A bullet grazed his arm as he moved closer. The man swung his arm out instead, but Eggsy dodged the fist, ducking underneath him. He grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it back, dragging the gun free from his hand.

Eggsy stepped back and fired. One shot to the man’s knee. It wasn’t enough, unfortunately, to take him down. The man growled and charged forward with all the purpose of throwing himself into his target, and Eggsy dodged sideways. His leg got caught instead, taking him down to the floor, with a heavy thud. “What the fuck are you doing here? Who the fuck sent you? Who do you work for?”

“Like I’d tell you!” Eggsy twisted, kicking the man in the face, as he leapt back to his feet, ignoring the pain in his arm.

Eggsy raised his hand, twisting the knobs on the Kingsman issued Bremont watch, one of the only belongings that had been left to him after coming to this place. He skipped past the forgiving ‘Amnesia’ setting and settled on ‘Execute’, firing the neurotoxin tipped dart straight into the figure of the man on the floor. The same neurotoxin that was used to coat the blade in their shoes.

The man on the floor never had a chance.

“Guinevere, are you okay?”

“Jus’ a scratch.” Eggsy clicked the trigger of the gun a few more times before giving up on it, the cartridge empty. He could hear footsteps now, rushing towards him. His presence had been more than given away in that little scuffle. He paused at the corpse of the man on the floor, before reaching down and pulling the dart free from his neck.

“That is completely unsanitary.”

“Whatever. I got nothing else to defend myself with,” Eggsy argued, tucking the dart back into the slot in his watch. He had one tip left if he needed it. The watch was typically one time use, but a creative Kingsman could use it twice. He left through the window he came in, feet hitting the cold ground. It was sunrise now, the sky cast in blue and orange.

“Keeping heading back, away from the town. There are woods back there you can escape into.”

Eggsy followed Harry’s advice, running through the rest of the church property. They were after him now, a small army of men searching for him. Gunshots were fired in the distance. His feet hit cold wet grass and he stopped.

“Keep going.”

“My stuff. I need my stuff.”

“Leave it. It’s all replaceable.”

Eggsy was shaking his head. “No. It-- no it’s not. There should be another tracker in that bag, Arthur. I need it.”

“Guinevere, you’re risking your life for nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Harry! It’s my tie!”

Harry went quiet on the other side. 

Eggsy knew it was stupid, hell he knew he shouldn’t have even brought it with him in the first place, but in a bag full of Frederick’s unrecognizable things, he needed something to remind him who he was. Something more than just Harry and Merlin’s voices. The tie he had worn to his ceremony was all he wanted.

“It’s back at the church. You’ll have to head back towards the monastery. You’ll have to take the long way around. It sounds like they’re headed straight towards you.”

It was probably one of the most idiotic, riskiest things Eggsy could have done, but if he was leaving this place without the friend Frederick had made, he would at least leave with the one thing that meant anything to him. He took off, running barefoot around the perimeter of the church. The small army that was on his tail was headed towards him without the thought that he would even be trying to go back the other way. He could hear them shouting things at one another: “Where is he?” “Do you see him?” “Take him down!”

Eggsy ducked back into the church. Harry was leading him the rest of the way back to the monastery. He hit the door again, exactly where he had been when he nearly got caught the first time. It was large and wooden and locked. He threw himself against it. It didn’t budge. He let out a string of expletives, as he kicked and shoved at the door, trying to work the door knob free, trying to force the wood off its hinges.

“Guinevere. Calm down. You’ve picked enough locks. You can do this.”

He took a deep breath and lowered himself to his knees. He hated having to brutalize Tommy’s glasses, but it was the only other tool he had on hand. and he bent up an arm, working it into the old keyhole. He could hear the footsteps approaching from the other direction. They were more of them searching for him now. 

“Aha!” Eggsy breathed out a gasp of excitement when the door finally came open for him, and he pushed inside, revealing stacks of suitcases, stacks of bags, and belongings stolen from all the people that had come to the community seeking relief from the stress of the world around them, seeking freedom from this existence. There was also a man there, looking startled. He panicked, felt around his pockets, looking for something to defend himself with. Eggsy raised his wrist again, a single twist of the watch knob and then he was firing the dart into the man’s neck. The large, heavy body slumped to the ground.

“Fuck off,” Eggsy muttered, kicking the man while he was down, before stepping over and digging through the towers of luggage.

Frederick’s suitcase had been an old leather one, edged with gold, with all the look of the last thing he would have taken from his wealthy family. Eggsy found it with some searching, knocking over other bags in the process. He popped it open, dug through the clothes of the young man he had pretended to be for weeks, until he found it, tucked and rolled into a corner: navy blue field with stripes. He grabbed it, tied it around his wrist and dug the small pistol and a second magazine out of the other corner. Then he was off.

The footsteps were gaining on him. They found him. He wasn’t even trying to hide at this point, there was no point. They were shooting to kill. Whatever he had stolen from them was obviously worth something, that this organization was so desperate to keep their secrets secret.

Eggsy fired back behind him, shooting his small pistol over his shoulder one moment, then under his arm the next as he took a turn. He ran straight through into the town, releasing the first magazine and shoving in the second as he went. He was hoping to take advantage of the civilian presence that they would pull back on firing their weapons. They did, but the community was awake, and people were filling in the space, acting like obstacles. It felt intentional. “I could really use a pick up right about now!”

“I understand. I’m working on it.”

A Sister with a flock of women blocked his way towards the road out of town, and he made a frustrated noise, turning right, trying to get around them. Another flock blocked his way again, and he took another sharp turn. “C’mon, Arthur! I can’t keep running forever!” Eggsy leapt over a fence, before he was booking it down a paved road as soon as he had the chance. His feet ached on the rough concrete. His chest was burning. He was panting for air as he ran as fast as his feet would take him. 

“I already have an agent enroute to your location, but you have to keep moving. Don’t get caught.”

“Obviously!”

Eggsy jogged on for another ten minutes, before he heard the roar of an engine approaching. He couldn’t recognize the sound of it as any sort of car, but the question was answered moments later as a sleek black BMW sports-tourer sped up the road and took a sharp turn to cut him off. He had to jump back to avoid getting run over.

The rider sat up and held out a helmet.

“Uh… Arthur?”

“Oh good. He’s there. Get on.”

The rider offered the helmet again. It was the first time Eggsy had ever seen something like a _bike_ as part of standard Kingsman transportation. Up until now it had always consisted of fairly upper class vehicles. A bike seemed just the opposite, but this was not the time to wonder. He took the helmet with a grateful nod and climbed on board the back of the bike. He could feel the powerful engine rumbling beneath him.

“Hold on tightly now.” The voice that pumped in through the helmet was a familiar northern Irish brogue, with an accent that lilted up with rising inflections. There was only one agent that Eggsy knew who spoke like that.

“Percival!?”

“Yes?”

“I thought you were on leave.”

“I am, but I was also the closest agent to your location. I have a home out here in the countryside, and I’m doing Arthur a favor by taking a detour on my morning ride.”

Eggsy never really pictured Percival as the motorcycle riding kind of guy. Their few encounters had painted the older man as fairly standoffish, a little distant and a little uptight. This was definitely an unexpected surprise and he clung to the slim Kingsman for dear life as the bike took off down the road.

“I owe him,” Harry muttered over the speaker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7 and chapter 8 are both written and awaiting beta. Thanks for hanging in there!


	7. Things to Consider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which nothing happens and we meet another Kingsman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god. I am so sorry it's looked like I've abandoned the story. I haven't really, I swear. Life just got away from me for a while there. The added bonus of the fact that I've been struggling with chapter 9 and have torn it down and rewritten it so many times and I'm still not happy with it. Work in progress and all that. I've also been kind of nervous to post this chapter, because things start to swing a little more in the gay direction. Hopefully it doesn't feel too forced. But it's here. The story is very much alive, just very slow going.

When Eggsy finally arrived at the manor after an hour or so on the back of Percival’s bike, he felt a bit frostbitten from the cold. Merlin, who was already briefed on everything that had happened, was there to greet him, to wrap him up in warm blankets and to rub the feeling back into his extremities. He mentioned that this wasn’t the first time an agent has shown up on the brink of frostbite and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Eggsy was lucky his toes were still red.

Extra heat pumped into the small room, as Merlin knelt on the floor, massaging the young man’s feet with a heated towel. Eggsy felt a little awkward, a little spoilt and a little comforted. Ever since becoming Guinevere, ever since Harry waltzed back into his life, the closeness he had developed with the older Scotsman seemed to suffer. He missed this. He toyed with the tie around his wrist. “Where’s Harry?” he finally asked, breaking the silence.

“He’s sleeping for the first time in days.” This was a lie. He wasn’t sleeping.

“Oh yeah?”

Merlin looked up at him, his long fingers, strong hand still moving carefully over the arch and ball of Eggsy’s foot. “He had insisted on being the one watching out for you. I took over occasionally, but he was going much longer without sleep than he should have. I kept telling him he has paperwork to do, but does he listen? No.”

“That’s why he saw that kid being taken away…”

“Yes. Exactly.”

Eggsy was quiet for a moment longer. He wriggled his toes experimentally when Merlin moved from one foot to the other. They were tingling, feeling almost as if they were on fire, but he had been reassured that it was a good thing. If he couldn’t feel anything there would be trouble. “They had all our personnel files.”

“Harry told me.”

“It said Chester was still alive, and Harry was still dead.”

“Then obviously their information is out of date. Whomever and wherever it came from must not be up to date.”

“Then, how?”

Merlin stopped. He looked up thoughtfully, brow slightly furrowed. “I don’t know. There are hundreds of Kingsmen employed world wide. Some are deeply connected with us here in the UK, others are part of their own separate branches. If the information came from someone much higher on the hierarchy of power, it would be much more accurate. No one except for those present at your ceremony know that Harry is alive. When a Kingsman dies, he often stays dead, and judging from what you found tonight, it’s likely for the best.”

“They’re all targets then, you think? I mean, is something gonna happen to Rox?”

“Not if we can help it.” Merlin carefully dropped Eggsy’s other foot, and gave it a careful examination. He looked back up at him. “How are you feeling now?”

Eggsy looked down at his feet, and gave both sets of toes another experimental wiggle. They still hurt, but they felt better than they had been. “Better,” he responded with a slight grin playing at the corners of his lips. “But the rest of me still feels pretty cold…”

The older man shook his head, but he was patiently compliant with the implied request. He rose to his feet and perched himself carefully on the arm of the chair and lowered his large hands onto Eggsy's slim shoulders. A comfortable silence settled between them again as Merlin pampered him in a rare gesture of affection, massaging him. Eggsy’s body sagged in the plush arm chair, wrapped up in warm blankets, eyes sliding shut. He let out a satisfied sigh of pleasure. This was exactly what he needed, even if he hadn’t realized it until this moment.

Merlin could hear Harry in his ear then. Harry who could see everything from the monitors in his facility. “He’s alright.” And as much as Merlin wanted to respond to his oldest and dearest friend, he didn’t. He didn’t want to let on to Eggsy that Harry was eavesdropping on them. The voice in his ear continued, soft, barely there, “I was worried.” Whether or not either of them

“How come the others didn’t have files?” Eggsy finally asked after a long pause.

“Who?”

“Isolde, Tristan, You.”

“Because we operate on a higher level of confidentiality.” That was the easy answer. It was the same reason why Eggsy had no idea they existed until his invitation to becoming Guinevere. These were Agents with upper level authority, Agents that were intended to maintain as much discretion and as receive much protection as possible. On the outside Merlin’s role was merely trainer, tactician, but the true responsibilities ran much deeper than that. There were reasons why his code name and Viviane’s were that of mythos, the characters responsible for pulling the strings that made Arthur. That, however, was all classified information. “Guinevere is included as well.”

Eggsy opened his eyes and tilted his head back, looking up at Merlin. “But Arthur isn’t?”

“Arthur is a figurehead. There will always be an Arthur, and that is why your job is to protect him if the time comes, as it is my job to protect the Knights should it come to that.” Merlin pushed a strand of dirty blonde hair from Eggsy’s eyes. 

Harry’s voice was low and quiet in Merlin’s ear. “I’m sorry.” He could apologize a thousand times over for dying on Merlin’s watch, and for all that their relationship has continued on in the same easy rhythm it always had, he knew deep down inside that forgiveness would be a long time coming. Eggsy would be the same way, though he wore his emotions much more openly than the older man.

“Maybe I should forgive Harry.” The words came from the young man after several minutes of comfortable silence.

“You could.”

Eggsy sighed, long and dragged out and slightly annoyed and defeated all at once. “I just-- it just pisses me off. I thought I meant something to him. And the way he just took off like that. Then he doesn’t even tell me he’s alive and…” It was the same argument it always was. “I just want him to forgive me.”

There it was.

“He was so disappointed in me. He was so mad at me. He said…” Eggsy trailed off, his face was screwed into a look of disappointment and annoyance. “He never let me apologize.”

Harry went quiet on the other end of the headset. 

“You shouldn’t be telling me this,” Merlin scolded, directed just as much to the young boy with him, as his old friend in the other room. “This is a conversation you need to be having with Harry.” Merlin’s hands slid down Eggsy’s shoulders, and he gave him a firm, encouraging shake. He watched the young boy shake his head and bury himself deeper in the blankets, pretending to seek warmth, hiding. “When you’re ready, of course.” 

Merlin wasn’t about to force a conversation about relationships with Eggsy. He could be forward and open about a lot of things, this was not one of them. It would have been hypocritical of him. He slid off the arm chair and left with only a soft touch to the top of Eggsy’s head, before seeking out the man formerly known as Galahad.

Harry was hiding out in one of the many rooms Merlin had claimed for his own. He was sitting, legs crossed, dressed in a warm jumper, a mug of tea sitting on the table beside him. His hands were clasped on his knee, holding his glasses. His brow was furrowed. Most times both men kept a respectable distance from each other, but lately there was an ounce of instinct from their youth when it came to the way Merlin demonstrated his affection towards Harry, perhaps because he finally realized the significance of losing the man who still meant the world to him. He slid his arms around the other man from behind. “Harry.”

Harry tilted his head back, looking up at him, Merlin’s real name on his lips. “I suspect your affection towards me at this moment is related towards your affections for Eggsy.”

“I can say the same for you.”

“He went back for the tie.”

“Because it was _your_ tie.”

Harry sighed, eyes sliding shut as Merlin moved to caress his cheek and chin with his long, calloused fingers. It had been ages since he let himself be comforted by this kind of touch. He could still hear the panic in Eggsy’s voice when he realized he would have to leave without his tie. He could still hear the way Eggsy demanded they go back, all for a stupid scrap of fabric.

“It’s not stupid,” Merlin interjected, as if he could read Harry’s thoughts. They’d certainly been friends long enough. “You heard and you saw everything, and the two of you are so goddamn stubborn.” He ignored the way Harry cracked open his eyes and scowled up at him. “I haven’t been this frustrated since I waited five years for someone to tell me how they felt.”

“And how did that turn out?”

“Terribly, obviously.”

Shifting slightly, Harry moved to grasp Merlin’s tie, pulling it free from his jumper, twisting his hand in it as he pulled the taller man closer. Their lips met in a brief, familiar kiss. They had once spent years together like that: stealing kisses, furtive glances, late nights in bed together, early mornings in the shower. They had stopped for years, but Harry’s return, and Harry’s complicated feelings towards the young boy had them resuming the bad habit. It was a platonic use of their frustrations. “What was so terrible about it?” Harry asked, as their lips parted.

Merlin huffed against Harry’s cheek and pulled back, tugging his tie free from the other man’s grip. He wandered around the sofa to take a seat for himself. “We couldn’t keep our private lives and our personal lives separate. He wanted missions, and I wanted to keep him safe. I suspect he began to resent me before we ended things.”

“I did not.”

“Was I necessarily speaking about you?”

Harry shifted, sliding closer towards his oldest and dearest friend. “As if there were others..” It was playful. It reminded them of their youth, the way they used to tease each other. Merlin had been his first and his last serious relationship, spanning nearly twenty years of their life together. 

It took some time, but eventually Merlin managed to convince Harry to finally get some sleep. When Merlin emerged from the sitting room, he found that Eggsy had fallen asleep curled up on the plush armchair that he had left him in. The older gentleman took advantage of this free time to reconnect with the other agents he was responsible for, agents that he felt he had been neglecting for the past few weeks. He also took this time to comb through the information that had been retrieved on Guinevere’s first mission. Gigabytes of data were heavily encrypted, requiring extensive amounts of digital forensic work, but he didn’t trust to send the information over to their tech department, not with the knowledge that someone out there was sharing personal agent information. 

Dedicating ninety to ninety-nine percent of his time to two men was not what Merlin had signed up for when he took on the position that he did. He had never pictured himself developing attachments or preferences to particular agents. He always saw himself as fairly detached, emotionally unavailable. It was what made him such an ideal candidate for Merlin. Then Galahad waltzed into his life, all confidence and pride and the skills to prove it. He was as beautiful then as he was now, tall and broad shouldered, with a slim waist and long, elegant legs. He moved with particular kind of grace that was all his own. Merlin wasn't sure he'd ever seen Harry start up a flight of stairs without running the initial few first. He was exactly Merlin 's type when he didn't even know he had a type. 

Then came Eggsy: scrappy and tough and a face filled with cynicism and hope all at once. Merlin hadn’t intended to grow attached to him, but when he watched the boy move, the way the boy threw himself into his training, into that mission into Valentine’s bunker, he understood what Harry saw in him. Then things, irreversible things, happened in the days that followed Harry’s unfortunate death, and though they chose not to speak of it, neither of them regretted it. It was comfort when they both so desperately needed it. 

Merlin let out a heavy sigh as he stared up into the large monitor before him, the data an encrypted jumble. Someone out there was targeting his Kingsmen and he hoped to God he wasn’t going to lose any of them in the process. As his computer worked, he made the long trek down into the depths of Headquarters, down towards the armoury.

This was where Viviane sat. On the outside his duties were about the weaponry and arms available to the Kingsman and like Merlin, his responsibilities extended much deeper into the organization. Responsibilities that were otherwise classified. On the outside, Viviane was handsome for his age: late sixties, a strong chin, dark eyes and hair that was more salt than pepper. He was tall and broad shouldered like many of the other Kingsmen, and could still strike and imposing figure. Merlin still remembered him as the man who held his hand during the early part of his promotion; the man who guided him through the hoops and complicated mess that would become his life.

“You saw?”

“I did.”

“They know.”

“Of course they do.” Viviane’s face was a scowl, brow furrowed. He shifted at his desk and poured two tumblers of scotch: one he kept for himself, the other he offered to Merlin, who accepted it gracefully, though he thought it was perhaps a bit early to partake in these sort of libations. He sat himself down beside the older gentleman.

“If we take into consideration the number of people that are employed by the organization, the number of people that are interviewed,” Viviane continued, “There is information out there that isn’t in our control, under our strict monitoring. How much confidence do you have in your Kingsmen?”

“Enough,” Merlin responded. “The information that was presented there appeared to come from an outside source. There was no evidence of awareness that Harry is not, in fact, deceased.”

“Or perhaps the information came from Arthur himself.”

Merlin bristled at the suggestion, and he sat up a bit straighter in his seat. He made eye contact. The suggestion struck a nerve, and he raised a finger, pointing. “Don’t you dare say a thing like that. Harry loves this organization more than anything. It’s all he’s ever known. Why would he try anything like that?”

Viviane raised an eyebrow, almost in challenge. “Harry is the one that wants to see a change to the way things are done around here.”

“We all want to see a change. Why not trust my Kingsmen? They are as much yours as they are mine.”

“And Chester was mine as well.”

Merlin bit his tongue, and a silence fell between them. The previous Arthur had been there longer than either of them, but when Viviane had first joined the Kingsman as Galahad, Lancelot had been a guiding force in those few years before his promotion. There had been a trust there, one that had otherwise been violated when Chester willingly handed over Kingsman to Richmond Valentine. Viviane, upon Chester’s promotion, had been his biggest supporter.

“I’ve always said that Kingsman was too big for it’s own good. There are too many people, too many hands, too much knowledge getting out into the world.” Viviane’s expression darkened, his hand tightened on his glass. “We are not as secret as we pretend to be.” There was a pause and he straightened his back, and made eye contact with Merlin. “For the time being, we should keep these findings to ourselves. We don’t want to involve the others if we can help it. No point raising alarms if the source is internal.”

Merlin rose to his feet, and smoothed a hand down the front of his jumper. “I trust our Kingsmen, Viviane.” But even as he said the words, there was a sudden nagging in the back of his mind. A seed had been planted there and it was taking root.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I want to add that Viviane was described with Timothy Dalton in mind. You know, to help form that mental picture.


	8. Queen's Gambit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eggsy goes on a mission with Roxy and gets derailed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, guys! I kept sitting on this chapter and reading it and rereading it, but I decided I can't make it any better or any worse than it already is. Thanks as always for all the comments. It reminds me to keep writing this and not give up (slow as I might be)! This chapter is where things try to get a little more exciting!

With Guinevere having gone on and succeeded at his first mission, the question of replacing the position of Galahad arose at the next meeting of the Knights. Merlin had been very careful to discuss this ahead of time with Harry, bringing up his concerns about the information that Eggsy had retrieved. Someone out there has access to classified personnel files and is sharing it and the last thing they needed was to introduce eight more questionable trustworthy individuals to their organization. They couldn’t allow any more information to escape without discovering the source of the initial leak. This, of course, was not something neither Merlin or Arthur felt comfortable sharing at the table, not with the possibility that one of the eight may be the source of that information, outdated as it seems.

“We can’t induct a new member until we are certain that the members we currently have are once again operating at full capacity,” Arthur addressed to the eight at the table. The place to his right still remained unoccupied. “Until then, we will continue as we have been.”

Percival, after retrieving Guinevere from his mission in the English countryside was back on part-time, decreased duty. Technically speaking, Arthur was using him to hand off a load of his paperwork, much to Merlin’s chagrin. Kay was still in recovery, though the fact that he was able to physically sit through the meeting, even from his room in the Infirmary, was a massive improvement. Unfortunately he still lacked the ability to perform up to Kingsman requirements. Rumor had it he was never going to be fighting fit again, and would have to someday be relegated to a much less physical job, much like Arthur. Bedivere on the other hand, was physically fit and while the immediate days after the Valentine incident held quite a bit of promise, his mental state was suffering as the weight of his family care rested solidly on his broad shoulders. They were lucky he even managed to make it to the meeting.

Lancelot was picking up the slack as the youngest available Agent. She was quick, efficient and clean, but it still was still not enough. They were short handed in such a way that Arthur was forced to give Guinevere up to accompany her on a two-person mission. Though, perhaps it was incorrect to say forced, as it felt more like two children begging to go out to play together. 

It was a simple mission from start to finish. There were no fake identities on this mission, no disguises, no undercover operations. They had their targets and they had their plan. The fifteen hour flight from London to Macau was all the time the two young agents had to pull themselves together before entering the casino armed to the teeth and ready for action. They were going after an Englishman by the name of Jonathan Northam. His name had already appeared once or twice with connections to the distribution of illegal drugs in Britain, but every time he was cleared of all charges. He had a significant bank account, with significant power. He was, as far as the Europol was concerned, untouchable.

Of course, Kingsman was not part of Europol.

Guinevere’s white suit had been pressed and cleaned for this mission, looking buttoned up and more like a Kingsman than he had in his previous mission. He felt so much more comfortable in these clothes than the oversized, disorganized outfits that had been Frederick’s wardrobe. The perfectly tailored suit made him stand up taller, shoulders squared, head back. The suit made him feel professional, put together and ready for action. Lancelot's suit was equally as pressed and perfectly tailored as Guinevere's. Her jacket was a soft warm shade of brown, over dark trousers. It somehow made her look taller, striking an imposing figure, even if she stood several inches shorter than the other agents.

Merlin’s Scottish brogue drifted through to them as they stepped into the lavish casino. “Mr. Northam has a Royale Suite on level 30, but he has been spotted spending a considerable amount of time in a Rialto Suite up on level 38. Proceed with caution, we don’t know how many people are working with him.”

The casino was full, bursting with sound and colorful lights and more tourists than either of them could count on one hand. The people around the pair ranged from the well dressed, to the older men in large floral print shirts and cargo shorts. There was a distinct aroma of stale alcohol in the air. Guinevere shuddered. It reminded him of his days in the clubs, of the drugs and heavy drinking and petty crimes that accompanied it. It was a time he wanted to forget. He was better than the boy he used to be, Harry had taught him that much.

The mission was Lancelot’s, so Guinevere deferred to her for the plan of action. She had planted two cameras that fed back to Merlin on floors 30 and 38 to watch for movement, while they split up and scoped out the casino for any signs of Mr. Northam or his associates. This meant biding their time on the floor in a fashion that reminded the two young adults of the classic bond films: well dressed secret agents participating in high rolling games. It thrilled their inner child. Lancelot proved to have quite a bit of success at the craps table. Guinevere, on the other hand, decided to try his luck at poker.

It would be a lie to say that he hadn’t ever played before. He was good, and he knew he was good. Winning games was half the reason why he was able to afford his drug habit in his youth. This, however, was more money than he had ever seen in one place. The ante was high around this table. The men were well dressed and so wealthy they likely had more money than they knew what to do with. They were the nouveau riche. Not wealthy enough to be on Valentine’s radar, but connected enough to inherit the businesses, investments, riches from those who fell victim to their implants.

One man in particular caught Guinevere’s attention, and certainly not in the good way. He was a thick, heavyset man, less a brick wall and more a concrete globe, and his eyes seemed to rest perpetually on Guinevere, as if trying to see right through him. The look made his skin prickle into cautious goosebumps underneath his suit, but on the outside he kept it together. In this moment he was alone. Merlin’s voice absent from his ear, no doubt occupied with Lancelot’s business, this was her mission after all. Guinevere didn’t want to admit it, but he rather missed Arthur’s voice.

Cards went around the table in traditional stud poker style. The game was as tense as expected with tens of thousands on the line, and compared to the people Guinevere had played with in the past, these men were no slouches. They played quietly, they had perfect poker faces, they made dramatic bets. Several rounds in, only one in five had been eliminated. Guinevere sat on a considerable stack of chips. He could only imagine the kinds of changes this money would make in his family’s lifestyle. For half a beat he forgot where he was and why he was there. It was in that moment the target entered his field of vision. He froze.

Merlin’s voice drifted into his ear. “Guinevere has sight of the target. Lancelot, proceed to Guinevere’s location.”

Jonathan Northam approached the table, watched for a moment, then lay a hand on the globe-like man’s shoulder. He gave it a minute squeeze that no one should have noticed if they weren’t watching him carefully and with a word of encouragement, he slipped away into the crowd.

“Target identified,” Lancelot said in his ear, communicating less with Guinevere and more with Merlin. “Pursuing.”

The heavyset man lost that round, then proceeded to lose the next. There were some whispers around the table that Mr Northam was a jinx. He went all in on a weak hand and lost it all. It played like a desperate attempt to bluff and scare the others out, but Guinevere knew better. He was trying to get away. He had been biding his time.

“What bad luck,” the man bemoaned, as he rose slowly to his feet. He had an American accent, with a gravely voice that sent chills down Guinevere’s spine. “Maybe next time.” Their eyes met and a smile stretched across his lips, showing off a set of pearly white, perfectly straight teeth. “Good luck, _kid_.”

Guinevere was being baited. He knew it in his bones. He should have known better than to pursue, but his gut told him the benefits outweighed the risks. Whether or not he was connected to the mission, that man knew something. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Guinevere watched the man disappear into the crowd. He went all in on his next bet. It wasn’t tremendously subtle, but he needed to follow. Tens of thousands of dollars gone in a blink of an eye, and then he was standing up, thanking everyone at the table and striding off. Instinct told him to shove his way through the crowd, to run and catch up and pin the man down and beg for answers, but he could hear Arthur’s voice in the back of his head, telling him to hold his head up high, to be a gentleman no matter the circumstance. He moved carefully.

“Gwen, where are you?” Lancelot’s voice drifted into Guinevere’s ear as he tried to seek out the round man from his poker game. He had seemingly vanished into thin air.

“I’m tailing that fat man the target had his hand on.”

“What? Why?”

“He knows something, Lance. I have to find out what it is.”

“Or he’s bait. He’s trying to trap you.”

“No one can trap me. I am untrappable.” Guinevere’s gaze finally landed on him. The globe-like man was stepping into a lift, and his large girth made it appear as though he filled the car as the doors slid shut in front of him. Guinevere stopped. “Lance, what floor are you on?” He watched the numbers overhead start counting up.

“Thirty-six.”

“I’m heading up.” Guinevere hoped his legs would get him up those thirty-odd flights of stairs faster than the lift. He ran, taking the steps two by two, or three by three, working his way up the narrow stairwell. The burning in his thighs and in his chest was nothing compared to the almost-frost bite he had experienced in his last mission.

Guinevere hit the thirty-sixth floor and glanced out into the hallway. Lancelot was standing there, back against the wall. She was listening in on the room just behind her, and he suspected that Merlin was listening too. Their eyes met, and she mouthed, “Hurry up.”

“I can’t,” Guinevere mouthed back, “He’s not here.”

“What?”

Making the shape of a circle with his hands, Guinevere indicated the round man he had been chasing earlier, then he pointed upwards with his finger and disappeared back into the stairwell. He ran up the next flight of stairs and was greeted by an empty hallway. The floor above that was the last. There was only the roof. He wanted to ask for help, but Merlin was absent from his headset, no doubt occupied by the mission occurring a few stories beneath him.

Guinevere switched the infrared on his glasses, and the world blossomed into a spectrum of colours. He sought out the shape of his target, searching for a spherical shaped concentration of heat. There was a room on either side of the top floor: two of the grandest suites the hotel had to offer. One side had a few bodies, slim, vaguely feminine in shape, and the other side had a singular figure, round as anything and burning hot.

Ear to the door, Guinevere didn’t hear anything, no voices, no mysterious sounds of activity that would have given away the man’s involvement in the mission occurring two floors below. He felt for the gun hidden by his jacket, the watch around his wrist, his bulletproof suit, before laying a hand on the door.

It opened.

It shouldn’t have opened. Guinevere was supposed to use the hacked keycard Merlin had provided them before the mission even began. The door wasn’t supposed to be unlocked, but there it was, swinging forward and granting him entrance into the massive space. He stepped cautiously, his glasses switching from infrared to normal vision.

The man came into view, standing behind the stone countertop of the suite’s kitchenette. He was popping open a crystal decanter of amber liquid, creating a familiar image that struck Guinevere right in his core. “Welcome,” the man said said, “I’m happy to see that Mr Northam’s little drug ring was enough to get Kingsman attention.”

Guinevere felt a bristle down his spine. His skin prickled in goosebumps. He stepped cautiously, one foot behind the other as he crossed the hardwood floor without turning his back on the man. “How--?”

The man poured two glasses of liquid and pushed one across the marble countertop. “Have a drink. Let’s chat.”

“I know better than to take a drink from a stranger.”

“Fair enough.” And as if to prove a point, the man reached for the offered beverage, raised it to his lips and took a sip. “And I know what you’re thinking. I can’t shoot you even if I wanted to. Bulletproof suits and all that.” The man’s lips quirked into a smile that made Guinevere’s hair stand on end.

The man walked slowly around the marble countertop. He had unbuttoned his jacket. His great stomach strained against his trousers. He struck a formidable figure, tall and large from every angle. Guinevere had a sneaking suspicion that he could probably deadlift himself and Lancelot at the same time. He took another sip from his glass, giving an appreciative sigh before setting it down on the counter behind him. “Now the question is, _who_ are you?”

Guinevere narrowed his eyes. “Like I’d tell you,” he spat.

“Now, now. That isn’t very gentleman-like, is it?” The man looked thoughtful, folding his hands across his belly. “Now, you can’t possibly be Lancelot, and I hear Kay might be out of commission. Of course, then there’s Percival, who can’t wipe the blood of all those innocent people he killed from his hands.” 

The man’s expert knowledge of Kingsman was making the hairs on the back of Guinevere’s neck stand on end, and he slid a hand beneath his suit jacket, fingers closing around grip of the silenced pistol tucked into the back of his trousers. He watched the man’s movements carefully, watching for any indication that he would do be doing the same, but instead the man moved to tap a fat finger against his chin.

“No wait. _Galahad._ ” The words were practically dripping with forced kindness and poison all at once. “Yes. You must be. Poor Harry Hart, one of the best Kingsmen the organization had ever seen, done in by a man who had never shot a gun before in his life.” 

Guinevere took a step backwards. “Tell me who you are, or I swear to God I’ll fucking kill you,” he demanded.

The man raised his arms. “You wouldn’t dare kill me. You won’t get your answers if you kill me. A responsible Kingsman would prioritize information.” He tilted his head, challenging.

“You wanna bet?” Guinevere’s hand tightened on the grip, unable to help himself falling for the man’s challenge. “I ain’t like most Kingsmen.”

“So it seems,” The man was practically grinning now, with all the satisfaction of a spider having caught a fly in it’s web. “Harry always had a thing for pathetic little kids. I hope you don’t think you were special to him.”

Guinevere bit back the desire to tell the man to shut up. He tried to keep his composure, he didn’t want to give too much away. “I don’t think I’m special, I just know I’m _good._ ” He offered the man a cool smile, hoping to catch the man off guard.

The man, however, barked a laugh of amusement. “Overconfident Kingsman, and yet you still followed me here despite every sign not to.” He started to close in on Guinevere and his great size filled the space around them. He leaned in. Guinevere could feel his hot breath against his skin. “I never liked him. If it was up to me, I would have killed him myself, and I would have done it slowly so I could see him suffer. So I could watch the life drain from his eyes. Him and Merlin.”

Guinevere probably should have taken a step back, should have reevaluated the situation, should have called for help, but instead the man’s words made his adrenaline pump. He acted without thinking. The sound of the shot was silenced into a barely there, high pitched pulse. The large man was suddenly staring at him with a look of consternation as he stumbled backwards, hand pressed against his stomach. The fabric of his suit darkened with blood.

“Is this what Kingsman’s become?” The man’s great size suddenly appeared diminished, as if the single shot to his belly deflated his form. He had all the look of a man who had anticipated everything except this. “No refinement? No subtlety? If your friend downstairs is anything like you, I hope she doesn’t make it out alive.”

Thoughts scrambled through Guinevere’s head. He could put pressure on the wound. He could try and save this man’s life so he could get the answers he so desperately needed, or he could kill him. Guinevere took a step closer, and pushed the gun against the man’s head. “I told you, I ain’t like other Kingsmen.”

The man managed a spiteful sounding laugh. “So, are you going to finish the job, or are you going to stand there and watch me suffer?”

Guinevere jammed the gun harder against the man’s temple. “I want you to tell me who you are, and what you want, How do you know so much about Kingsman?”

The man turned his gaze up towards him, his eyes had gone bloodshot, his skin pale. His expression was dark and serious. “Ask Merlin. He should have all the answers. He always had.” Then he was reaching, grasping at Guinevere’s wrist, fingers curling around the gun. Guinevere never had the chance to pull his hand back, before the firearm went off for a second time.

Guinevere watched the man slump to the ground, lifeless. At his feet was a man who could have had a thousand answers for a million questions. Guinevere’s hand was shaking as he drew back his weapon. He couldn’t tell who had been responsible for pulling the trigger. Every ounce of him had wanted to kill the bastard, but in the moment when they were both grappling for control of the gun, Guinevere couldn’t give him what he wanted. Dying was the coward’s way out, and the man had made his decision.

He bent, hand scrambling through the dead man’s pockets. He found cash in the form of various currency, hotel key cards, and business cards stained red with blood and printed in a variety of different languages. There was no identification on the man, instead Guinevere found a sheet of platinum tucked into a pocket stamped with a single word: S.O.L.D.I.E.R. He tucked the card of platinum into one of the pockets of his jacket before abandoning the body, slipping back out into the lush hotel hallway.

Merlin’s voice suddenly filtered into his ear. He sounded furious and impatient. “Guinevere! What the hell have you been doing?”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Guinevere hurried down towards the stairs, leaping down them three-four steps at a time. Lancelot was backing out of the suite, gun raised just as Guinevere burst into the hallway.

“About time!” Lancelot called out to him, as she took two more shots that Guinevere knew landed with pinpoint accuracy. She raised the pistol and dropped the empty cartridge into her other hand. “What happened?”

Guinevere shook his head, holding up a hand to stop her. He was still trying to process the information, trying to process what happened. He remembered reading the word “Soldier” when he infiltrated that cult. The cult that seemed to have inside knowledge of the organization. ”:Long story. Catch me up first.”

Lancelot gestured towards the hotel suite she had left behind before giving a nonchalant shrug. Quick, efficient and clean, just like Merlin had said. She went in, got the information she so sorely needed and proceeded to cut the organization at it’s roots. Without a source, the rest of the ring would wither and die and the job was considered done. She left with knowledge of where the drugs were coming from, who else they were associated with, and that would eventually become another Kingsman’s mission in the future.

The pair hurried through the hallways of the hotel, making their way down into the depths of the casino, disappearing into the crowd. The bodies that had been abandoned were left for the clean up crew, already on their way, whose purpose was to see to it that those bodies efficiently disappeared and that it would never be traced back to their organization. Guinevere, however, did not tell them about the room on the 38th floor that held the corpse of the large man who knew Harry Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have chapter 9 finished (which will go up very very soon, promise), and chapter 10 is in it's infancy (sorry). If you guys want to read more of my (definitely not proofread or beta'd) stuff, I've been posting to FFXV because I am trash.


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